


the underappreciated siblings club

by nirav



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-11-10 17:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11131938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: literally exactly what it sounds like





	1. Chapter 1

“Alex, please, can you just--”

“Kara, I’m busy--”

“You’re leaving early to go on a date which is important because I know you need time with Maggie but I also know she’ll understand if you’re ten minutes late.   _Please_?”

Alex glares at her comm and huffs out a sigh.  All she wants is to have  dinner with her girlfriend and deal with the fact that yesterday she lost the last bit of faith she might have had in her father, and playing babysitter for Kara’s friend is hardly in line with that plan.  

“Fine.  Going now.  Go put out your stupid oil fire.”

“Love you!” Kara chirps over the comms and signs off with a beep.  Winn opens his mouth to say something and Alex slaps the back of his head.  

“Shut up.”

“Her assistant’s name is Jess and she’s very scary,” Winn says helpfully.

“You think _rabbits_ are scary,” Alex mumbles, shoving away from the desk and stomping off because she got everything she needed to get done early for this date and now she has to go check on Lena Luthor’s emotional wellbeing.

 

* * *

 

“Special Agent Danvers,” Lena says, one eyebrow up and arms folded carefully over her chest.  She doesn’t exactly look like someone who fell from the balcony of a skyscraper a day ago; then again, Alex is fairly certain she doesn’t look like someone who was nearly catapulted to the other side of the universe on an alien spaceship a day ago, so they’re probably even. “Don’t tell me the FBI is coming after my mother, too?”

“Not presently, no,” Alex says.  “I’m not actually here on official business.”

“Is that so?”  

“Supergirl asked that I come by and see that you’re okay.”  Alex can’t stop the way the words curdle on her tongue, her hands tight on her hips and shoulders square, because she trusts Kara’s judgment but Lena is still Lillian Luthor’s daughter and all Alex can see in her composure is the Lillian capturing and manipulating her father.  She curses Kara for putting her in this position when Lena flinches minutely at Alex’s distaste.

“I appreciate the gesture,” Lena says coolly.  “Please let Supergirl know that I’m quite alright.  Jess can validate your parking on the way out.  I won’t take up any more of your time”

Alex sighs, rubbing at her eyes.  “I’m sorry, that was rude of me.”

“I’m sure you have plenty of real work to do and this is interrupting it,” Lena says, voice still level and cold.  

“Actually, I don’t,” Alex says with a shrug.  “For once, my work calendar is clear.  And Supergirl _is_ worried about you, but she’s dealing with an oil fire, so she asked if I could see how you are and if we can do anything to help you.”

“Unless my psychotic family decided to stop trying to kill me, I don’t see that you can,” Lena says.  Her shoulders relax the tiniest amount and Alex counts it as a win.  She points at the chair across from Lena and waits until Lena nods before taking a seat.

“We’re working on that.”  The fake FBI badge on her belt digs into her hip and Alex grimaces and yanks it free.  “They both have an understandably impressive reach, even from prison, and an army of lawyers strongarming the justice department’s attempts to isolate them from visitors, but they can’t hold out forever.”

“You might be surprised,” Lena says with something approximating a smile, thin and sad and resigned, and Alex’s stomach turns over.  “Neither of them really come up short when they set their minds to something.”

“They will on this,” Alex says firmly.  “Is there anything we can do that would make you feel safer in the meantime?  I can have a detail assigned--”

“No,” Lena interrupts.  “I appreciate the offer, but I would rather not draw more attention to this than there already is.  I’m up in front of the board next week and the less dramatic this looks, the better.”

Alex’s phone buzzes and she glances at it the collection of text messages with a frown.  Kara’s still cleaning up at the fire and now Maggie and the NCPD are organizing some sting and she has to reschedule their date.  How fortuitous.  

“I can’t force you to take a protective detail, obviously,” Alex says after a moment, locking her phone and focusing her attention back on Lena. “But aside from your board, I think everyone would breathe a bit easier if you had one.”

“I’m trying to rehabilitate a four hundred billion dollar company, Agent Danvers.”  Lena smiles, a real smile this time, and shrugs.  “And 40% of my board is still loyal to Lex and my mother.  I don’t really have the luxury of breathing easier.”

“That many survived him going batshit?”

“You’d be surprised what kind of corporate parachutes billionaires can afford,” Lena says, waving one hand around vaguely.  “But that’s for me to worry about.  I promise you I don’t need a protective detail, and I’m sure you have plans this evening that you’d like to get to.”

“Actually, my date just got cancelled,” Alex says with a smile and a shrug.  “After I cleared my calendar, too.”

“Her loss,” Lena says diplomatically.  

Alex squints at her, rolling through her memories of her brief interactions with Lena to identify at which point she’d come out at all to her.  “How did you--”

“Call it a hunch.”  Lena props her chin in her hand.  “Also, Detective Sawyer has your picture on her lock screen and she arrested me recently.”

“Right,” Alex says slowly.  She rubs at her forehead and glances at her phone once more.  The lock screen is blank, per DEO protocol, but behind the encryption is a wallpaper photo of her and Kara.  “Look, do you want to get a drink?”

“Sorry?”  Lena blinks at her, finally unfazed.  “Are you asking--”

“Oh my God, no,” Alex rushes out.  “I mean, not that you’re not-- but no, I mean-- I have a girlfriend.  Like you said.  I meant a drink in a work capacity.  To see if we can figure out a way to set up a protective detail for you without giving your board an excuse to oust you.”

“Oh,” Lena says.  She sucks in a slow breath and appraises Alex from the other side of the desk for a long series of moments before nodding.  “Fair enough.”

“Right,” Alex says.  She pushes up from her chair and shoves her phone into her pocket.  

Lena gathers her coat and slides into it, tidying up a stack of papers and signing another stack and packing her laptop away.  Alex trails after her out of the office, hanging back as Lena hands off the signed papers to her assistant and makes her promise to go home, says goodnight to the secretary by the elevators, the security guard out front.

“You know, the last billionaire CEO I dealt with definitely didn’t know Randy the security guard,” Alex comments once they’re in the elevator.

“Probably wasn’t a very good boss, then,” Lena says with a shrug.  “Then again, if you’re talking about Maxwell Lord, there’s a _lot_ more to say about him besides the fact that he wasn’t a great boss.”

“Oh, the stories I could tell you,” Alex mumbles.  

 

* * *

 

The day after the Daxamite invasion, Alex and Kara are in the middle of a halfhearted _House of Cards_ marathon-- Alex had voted for Disney movies for the day, since Kara was in the middle of a broken heart, but she’d insisted-- when someone tries to kill Lena Luthor again.  Alex barely catches the discarded pint of cookie dough ice cream Kara’s abandoned on her speeding out the window, chasing after the sounds of a fight in Lena’s office her superhearing had picked up.

Kara whooshes back in half an hour later, just before Alex was about to call her, and skids to a stop in the kitchen.

“All good?”

“Lex sent someone else after Lena,” Kara mutters.  “Can’t we put _him_ in a pod and dropkick him to space?”

“Is she okay?” Alex offers Kara a carton of the takeout she’d ordered while waiting.

“She’s fine,” Kara says, pacing back and forth.  Her cape swooshes when she pivots into each turn, which she only does when she’s feeling particularly dramatic or nervous.

“Kara,” Alex says slowly.  “What’s up?”

“Lena knows,” Kara blurts out.  “About me.”

“Lena knows,” Alex echoes.  “About you.”

“That I’m Supergirl.”

Alex rubs at her forehead.  “You told her?”

“She figured it out!  It’s not my fault she’s a genius.”

Alex heaves out a sigh and drops back down onto the couch.  “Right.”

“I swear I didn’t mean to--”

“Kara,” Alex says with another sigh.  “You don’t have to apologize for her figuring it out.  Or even if you’d told her.  I know how close you are.”

“I hated lying to her,” Kara mumbles, slumping down at Alex’s side and dropping her head onto Alex’s shoulder.  “She’s known for ages and was waiting for me to tell her.  I feel horrible.”

“I’m sure she understands why you couldn’t tell her.”  Alex shoves at Kara’s side until she can extract her pinned arm and wrap it around Kara’s shoulders.  

“She’s hurt that I didn’t, though.”

“Give her some time, okay?  A lot happened for everyone in the last few days and everyone just needs a little while to bounce back.  You and Lena included.”

“Okay,” Kara grumbles into Alex’s shoulder.  “So you’re not mad someone else knows about me?”

“Mad?”  Alex rolls her eyes and flicks Kara’s ear.  “No.  But you _do_ have to go let J’onn know.”

“Can I take a nap first?”

“Nope.  Consider it penance for being the literal worst at secret identities.”

“But marathon--”

“Now!”

“Meanie,” Kara says with a whine.  She drags herself up to her feet and yanks her cape  free from Alex.  “Don’t eat all my ice cream.”

“I think you mean _my_ ice cream, since I bought it,” Alex throws back at her.  

“Mine!” Kara yells over her shoulder before flying out the window again.  Alex rolls her eyes and takes a defiant and oversized bite of the ice cream before dumping the carton back into the freezer and strolling out to her car.  It takes three times as long as it should to get to the L Corp offices, the streets still a mess from the fight, but it’s going to take even Kara about three hours to fill out all of the paperwork legal and HR are going to foist on her, so Alex has plenty of time.

The L Corp office is just as much of a mess as the rest of the city, though how much of that is due to the invasion and how much is from the most recent attempt on Lena's life is unclear.  There are uniformed cops everywhere and Jess the assistant is sitting at her desk with an EMT, sipping on orange juice and trying to calm her shaking hands, and Alex slides into the office easily with her FBI badge out and ready.

Lena is sitting at her desk, the only clear spot in the room, staring straight ahead.

"Hey," Alex says quietly.  She shoots a pointed glare at the two officers in the room and flashes her badge.  "Can I have the room, officers?"

Lena doesn't move as the officers leave, or when Alex clears off a chair and takes a seat across from her.

"You're okay?" Alex says after a long moment.  "Kara said--"

"Kara," Lena echoes quietly.  Her jaw works visibly, her teeth grinding together, and she finally looks at Alex.  "Is Supergirl.  Are you even really FBI?"

"No."  Alex reverts her badge and slides it across to Lena.  "DEO.  We have a broad authority to blend into any investigation as necessary."

"My best friend is Supergirl."  Lena picks up the badge delicately and inspects it with a creased forehead.  "That much I figured out.  This--" She flips the badge back across the desk.  It skids on the glass and into Alex's lap.  "Not so much."

"You know Kara never wanted to lie to you," Alex says, pocketing her badge.  "As Kara and as Supergirl, she was always your biggest defender, no matter what."

"And what about you?"  Lena raises an eyebrow and leans back in her chair.  She folds her hands into her lap and stares Alex down.

"I ask the questions Kara doesn't want to," Alex says quietly.  "That's my job.  She's the hero, the one who thinks the best of the world because that's what the world needs from her.  Me and the rest of the DEO, we think the worst of the world, so she doesn't have to."  She inhales slowly and pushes the air out even more slowly, letting her breaths fill the silence between them.

"For what it's worth," Alex says after too long.  "The entire DEO has your back now.  Not because you know about Kara, but because you proved yourself over and over."

"I'm elated," Lena says flatly, and Alex sighs.

"I understand why you're pissed," Alex says.  "I would be, too.  But I'm here as a DEO agent to let you know that if you want, we would be lucky to have your help going forward.  And I'm here as Kara's sister to let you know that she never wanted to lie to you, that she's always had your back, and that she is _broken_ right now and really, really needs her best friend."

It's enough to crack Lena's stoicism, finally, and she sucks in a jagged breath.  The sharp lines of her shoulders finally break and she caves forward, elbows falling onto the desktop and head dropping into her hands.

Alex has barely made it out of her seat before the telltale thud of Kara's boots land on the balcony, drawing their attention outside to where she stands uncertainly.

"Hey," Alex says with a wave, settling back into her chair.  Lena takes a deep breath and pushes up to her feet, turning to face Kara.  Her hands clutch into fists at her sides, shaking visibly, and Kara stops in the doorway from the balcony with her arms wrapped around her stomach.

"Hi," Kara says softly, more to Lena than to Alex, and Alex smiles down at the floor when Lena lunges forward and grabs Kara into a hug.  Kara melts into it, the way she only ever has for Alex, and Alex smiles a little bit wider.

"I'm going to head out," she says, moving close enough to grip at Kara's arm for a brief moment.  "Can you guys come to the DEO later?"

That's enough to pull the two of them apart, though Kara stays pressed into Lena's side and keeps a grip on her hand.  "What?"

"You need a security detail," Alex says gently to Lena.  "And before you start talking about the board, just give me a chance.  I think I have an idea."

 

* * *

 

Lena and Kara-- as Kara, in jeans and a sweater and redrimmed eyes-- walk into the DEO two hours later.  Winn drops a broken computer monitor on his foot and mouths wordlessly, and Alex rolls her eyes and elbows him in the side.

"Lena's up to speed.  Get used to it."  She hipchecks him out of the way, deliberately with her right hip so the holster at her waist slams into him.

"Ow!"

She ignores him and strides over to where Lena is making her way down the stairs, staring around the mess that is the DEO.

"Normally we're a bit neater," Alex says by way of greeting.  "Thanks for giving this a shot.  Did she use the puppy dog eyes?"

"She did," Lena says, narrowing her eyes over at Kara, and it's enough to get something resembling a smile from Kara.  Alex mouths a _thank you_ in Lena's direction and gestures towards the conference room.

"I have someone I want you to meet," Alex says, leading the way.  "I thought that maybe you would be more amenable to a security detail if it was someone who would also fit well into your business operations."

"No offense, Agent Danvers, but--"

"Alex," Alex says sharply.  "Call me Alex.  And have a little faith, will you?"  She pushes the conference room door open and is promptly shoved to the side by Kara, who squeals out _"Lucy!_ " and tackle-hugs Lucy Lane hard enough to nearly knock them both off their feet.

"Who's Lucy?" Lena mutters at Alex, not looking away from Kara and the bear hug she has Lucy wrapped in.

"Maj-- I mean, Lieutenant Colonel Lucy Lane."  Alex folds her arms over her chest smugly.  "Former director of the DEO, JAG lawyer, smartass extraordinaire."

"You called _me_ , Danvers," Lucy says, extricating herself from Kara and straightening her Army blouse and the disheveled ribbons.  She glares at Alex for a split second before snapping into her standard military posture and holding her hand out to Lena.

"Lieutenant Colonel Lane," she says.  "I hear you need a security detail."

"Isn't that a bit below your pay grade?" Lena says, shaking Lucy's hand nonetheless.  “And-- forgive me-- aren’t you a bit young for your pay grade?”

"I'm in a floating liaison post between the joint chiefs and the DEO," Lucy says.  "It might be below my pay grade, which I _am_ young for, but I’ve been lucky.  It's what's needed at this point in time, and I'm uniquely qualified."

"How's that?"  Lena is in full CEO mode, shoulders back and chin tilted up, and Alex looks back and forth between the two of them from her spot leaning against the door.  "I don't mean to be rude, but military law is not specifically applicable to the work at L Corp."

"Perhaps not, but the MBA I got from Harvard and my prior role as general counsel to CatCo Media Worldwide _are_ applicable."

"She's also not _terrible_ with a firearm," Alex says with a smirk.

"Ignore her," Lucy says, glaring over at Alex again.  "I'm better with a gun than she is, and I believe you've seen how good she is."

" _Better than_ is debatable," Alex says.

"You just don't want to admit that I'm a better shot than you," Lucy says.  "Anyways, Miss Luthor--"

"Lena."  She shakes Lucy's hand again.  "Welcome to L Corp, then, Lieutenant Colonel."

"I won't be functioning in a military role, so we can dispense with the rank," Lucy says.  “Call me Lucy.”

Kara grabs Lucy back up into a hug, lifting her off her feet and spinning around.  “I’m so glad you’re back!”

“Air, air, air,” Lucy gasps out, slapping at Kara’s shoulder.  “And it’s good to see you, too.”

“Happy times all around,” Alex says flatly, smiling anyways.  “Lena, we’re pulling together a background for Lucy to establish her as a long-term employee at L Corp.  You can figure out what position title you’d like her to have, so long as it justifies her spending most of her days with you.”

“Tax planning, probably,” Lucy offers.  “It’s not my favorite, but it’s the best cover.”

Lena smiles and shrugs with one shoulder.  "Luckily for you, my EVP on the tax side unceremoniously quit because his views were what you might call staunchly anti-alien."

"How fortuitous," Lucy deadpans.  "Should we get started?"

"I--" Lena starts, glancing over at Kara.  "Can we wait until tomorrow?  I think I need to take the day, after everything that's happened this week."

"Of course," Lucy says.  "I'll come by the office tomorrow."

"Thank you," Lena says.  She shakes Lucy's hand once more and hooks her free hand through Kara's arm to lead her out of the room, pausing only to echo her thanks to Alex on the way out.

"So that's Lena Luthor," Lucy says, leaning against the conference table and watching through the glass as Lena and Kara disappear down the hallway.

"The one and only," Alex says with an eyeroll.  "What were you expecting?"

"Kinda thought she'd be taller."

"That's hilarious coming from you," Alex says.  “Just because you got promoted at an absurdly young age doesn’t mean you’re actually still _growing_ , you know. “  She clears her throat and fidgets with her fingers.  "Thanks for doing this.  Really."

"I was tired of Washington anyways," Lucy says.  "So humid.  It's like living in a swamp." She grabs her cover from the table and tucks in under her arm.  "Come on, I'm hungry and I need to find an apartment."

"What does that have to do with me?" Alex says even as she follows Lucy out of the conference room.

"It means you're buying me lunch, catching me up on why Kara looks like someone ran over a kitten in front of her, and then going apartment hunting with me."

Alex groans but matches Lucy's pace anyways.  "I have an actual job, you know."

"Well, sure, but you also just activated me as an undercover asset, which makes _you_ my handler.  So," Lucy says with a smirk as she backs into the elevator and winks at Alex.  "Get a handle on your asset, Danvers."

Alex trips into the elevator, her face hot and throat dry, and stabs at the button for the lobby.

"Relax," Lucy says after a long moment.  "I'm not hitting on you.  I'm just reserving the right to tease you mercilessly because don't think I don't know all about your _ridiculously_ dramatic path towards dating that hot detective."

"I hate you," Alex mutters.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey," Kara says, bouncing in from the balcony to Alex's living room.  "What are you doing today?  Winn found a Catan tournament and we're going with James as a team.  You want to come?"

“Good morning to you, too,” Alex grumbles, shuffling along to the kitchen in search of coffee.  

“What do you say?”  Kara speeds past her and pours a cup of coffee, putting it on the counter just out of Alex’s reach.

“Can’t,” Alex says around a yawn.  She drags the coffee closer to her and yawns again.  “Got plans.”

“I thought Maggie was at that seminar in--”

“She is.”  Alex takes a long sip of the coffee.  “I have friends, you know.”

“Har har.”  Kara hops up to sit on the counter.  “What plans?”

“Lena’s conference,” Alex says, mostly into her coffee cup.  “I thought you were covering it.”

“Cat said I have to let someone else cover it,” Kara says with a huff.  “Apparently I’m supposed to share my sources with the other junior reporters, even when the source is my best friend.”

“How draconian,” Alex says.  

“Are you presenting?  You haven’t published anything in ages.”

“It’s almost like I don’t do science anymore now that I carry guns and chase down aliens or something,” Alex says with half of a smile.  

“You could, you know,” Kara says.  “I know you miss it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Alex says, sighing.  She holds her empty coffee cup back out to Kara and shoves her lower lip out until Kara refills it.  “But I like working with the DEO.”  She swallows half of the coffee and yawns again.  “Anyways.  Conference in the afternoon.  Drinks with Lena and Lucy after.  Etc etc.”

“I’m really glad you and Lena are friends now, you know,” Kara says.  

“We gossip about you all the time,” Alex says with a grin over the top of her coffee.  “Between talking to you and talking to her I know _so much_.”

“Alex,” Kara says sharply.  Alex grins wider and spins around with a flick of on hand.  Kara hops off the counter and flies over towards Alex menacingly.  “Alex, what did she say?”

“She doesn’t have to _say_ anything, you know,” Alex says over her shoulder.  She stubs her toe on the spare set of boots Maggie left in the living room and nudges them with her other foot, inch by inch, over closer to the front door.  “She’s head over heels for you.  Anyone with eyes can see that.”

Kara falls out of the air and onto the couch.  “What--”

“Kara,” Alex says, sighing and sitting down next to her.  “It’s been six months since Mon-El left.  Even if you were still in love with him, which I don’t think you _are_ , it would still be time to try and move on.”

“I don’t know,” Kara mumbles, curling into the couch and pulling her cape around her like a blanket.

“I’m not saying you have to,” Alex says.  She nudges at Kara’s hip with her foot.  “Or that if you do that you have to do anything with Lena.  But you two are--there’s something there.  Something that wasn’t there with James or Mon-El.”

“I don’t know,” Kara says again.  “After everything that happened, I just-- I dunno.”

“Just think about it?”  Alex nudges at her harder, poking with her foot until she finds Kara’s ribcage.  “Because you deserve to be happy. And you’re happiest around Lena.”

“I don’t think you’re _wrong_ ,” Kara says, swatting at Alex’s foot with the edge of her cape.  “But I-- it feels different.  With Lena.  Different than it did with Mon-El, or with James.”  She pauses and her eyebrows crinkle together.  “Is this how it felt when you realized you’re gay?”

“I’m like 97% sure you aren’t a lesbian,” Alex says drily.  

“I could be!”

“Kara,” Alex says, outright kicking at her.  “Seriously?”

“Okay, but-- Lena.  I like Lena.  I think I want to date her?  I want to date a girl?”

“Bisexuality is a thing that exists, you know,” Alex says.  “Do you need a pamphlet?”

“Jerk,” Kara mumbles.  “Fine.  Okay.  You’re right.”  She groans and flops out across the couch.  Her head drops heavily into Alex’s lap, nearly upsetting her coffee, and Alex rolls her eyes and pats lazily at her hair.  

“So, do you want me to set you up with Lena?”

Kara blows icy breath at Alex’s coffee mug and freezes the coffee in it.

“Seriously?” Alex yelps, dropping the entire thing on Kara’s forehead.  

 

* * *

 

The conference runs late, as conferences full of scientists do, and it’s nearly ten by the time Lucy manages to extract Lena and Alex from the room.  

“I’m tired and my brain hurts and you both owe me dinner,” she says definitively, a deathgrip on each of their arms as she drags them to the parking garage.  

“It’s not that late,” Alex says mildly, even as she allows herself to be manhandled into the car.  

“Behave, or I take you to my next CPE weekend and make you listen to lawyers talk for ten hours straight.”

“Well, if they’re all as charming as you,” Lena says, not looking up from her phone.

“Now you owe me dinner _and_ drinks,” Lucy grumbles.  

They wind up in the single most expensive restaurant in National City, floating past the startled diners to a spontaneously set up table in the back.  

“Doesn’t this place normally have a waitlist of like a year?” Lucy says, settling into her chair with a flourish.  

“It’s only six months,” Lena says, not looking up from her phone.  “And I went to school with the chef.”

“Of course you did,” Lucy says.

“The same school you went to with Veronica Sinclair?” Alex says.  She steals the drinks menu from Lucy and scans through the wine list.  “Reunions must be a black tie affair.”

“You have no idea,” Lena mutters.  

“Stop texting,” Lucy says, grabbing for Lena’s phone.  “I demand that you both lavish me with attention after making me listen to you talk science all day.”

“You really are the epitome of the youngest sibling,” Alex says, rolling her eyes.  “Way to support your stereotype.”

“Don’t throw me in with her.” Lena points sharply at Lucy.  “I refuse to be categorically condemned based on her behavior.”

“And it’s not my fault my parents felt the need to blow buckets of sunshine up Lois’s ass,” Lucy says with a shrug.  “A girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do to for attention.  Younger siblings always get the short end of the stick, right, Lena?”

Lena hums in agreement and salutes her with her wine glass.

“Seriously?  You do realize who _my_ younger sister is, don’t you?”

“Isn’t she technically older, minus that whole frozen thing?”

“Not mentally,” Alex grumbles.  Lena and Lucy both kick her under the table, and Lena glares sharply at her for a short moment.  Alex raises an eyebrow in Lena’s direction and props her chin in her hand, leaning over the table.  “Luce, did you know Lena has a crush on Kara?”

Lena clears her throat loudly, but it’s not enough to drown out the outright guffaw from Lucy’s side of the table.  

“Everyone knows that,” Lucy says, poking at Lena’s arm.  “I have a pool going with the tax department about when they get together.”

“Is this what it’s like having sisters?” Lena downs her wine and holds the glass out to Alex for a refill.  “I’m not sad about missing out on this at _all_.”  

“You should ask her out,” Alex says, offering her the refilled glass.  “She’ll say yes.”

Lena nearly drops the glass, barely righting it before the wine sloshes out.  Alex empties the rest of the bottle into her own glass and taps hers against Lena’s.  

“Do it,” she says.  “Seriously.  Sooner rather than later, Lane bet on the long game.”

“Asshole,” Lucy says with a glare.  She kicks Alex under the table again and steals her wine.  

“Are you sure?” Lena says quietly, ignoring Lucy entirely.  The waiter materializes to deposit a fresh bottle of wine at the table and disappears again, leaving Lucy with the new bottle and Alex’s full glass.  

“Yeah,” Alex says, just as quietly.  “She will.”

Lucy clears her throat and pours a new glass for Alex.  “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” she says brightly, holding her glass out for a toast.  “To the collection of vastly underappreciated, clearly superior, magnificent in all ways except for hitting on girls because you both are _terrible_ at that club and our inaugural dinner meeting.”

“The what now?” Alex says even as she holds her glass out.

“We’re a club,” Lucy says, downing half of her wine.  “I’m president, obviously.  Lena, you can be vice president.  We meet every two weeks to drink and talk about how much cooler we are than our siblings.”

“What about me?”

“You’re the mascot.”  Lucy pinches Alex’s cheek and winks.  “So, who wants to design our logo?”

 

* * *

 

_Im gonna lock kara and lena in a closet, you want in?_

The text pops up on Lucy’s phone at just after six on a Saturday morning, and she slows to a stop on the sidewalk to blink down at it.  

 _My phone says this is from alex but this doesn’t seem like an alex text._  She pauses and yawns and adds another text.   _Why are you texting me so early you monster_

_You aren’t funny.  You in?_

Lucy rolls her eyes and shifts uncomfortably on her heels.  Theoretically she’s outgrown walking home from a stranger’s apartment at six in the morning, especially when she takes into account how much her feet hurt, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s doing it anyways.

_Buy me coffee and explain your plan of attack and we’ll see_

“Okay,” sounds from behind her, abrupt enough to make Lucy jump and spin around, reaching for a sidearm she doesn’t have.  Alex smirks at her, arms folded over her chest and eyebrows up.  “Good morning to you, too, sunshine.”

“Are you stalking me or something?” Lucy shoves at Alex’s shoulder.  “Creeper.”

“It’s not my fault your walk of shame that must have originated weirdly close to my apartment took you directly into the path of my run,” Alex says, shoving her right back.  “So, coffee?”

“God, yes,” Lucy mutters.  “I’m desperate here.”  She hooks her arms over Alex’s shoulders and slumps against her back.  “Carry me.”

“It’s a good thing I need your help for this plan, else I’d leave you to wander home smelling like tequila and regret,” Alex says, even as she holds out her arms and lets Lucy climb up onto her back.

“You would never,” Lucy says, patting the top of Alex’s head.  “And I am a grown woman who can go out and get laid all she wants without requiring your judgment, thank you _very_ much.  The only thing I regret is these damn shoes.”

“I’m very happy for you,” Alex says, smirk audible in her voice.  She rounds the corner towards her building and slows in front of the door just as it opens and Maggie steps out.  “Hey, babe.  Look who I found.”

“Maggie!” Lucy says cheerfully.  “We’re conspiring to lock Kara and Lena in a closet together so they stop being idiots and start dating finally.  Do you want to join our nefarious plot?”

“I’ll pass,” Maggie says, looking back and forth between Alex’s face and Lucy’s.  “Why are you using my girlfriend as a packhorse?”

“She’s just so good at it, you know,” Lucy says with a shrug.  She pats the top of Alex’s head again.  “Also, I was a little ambitious with my choice in footwear.”  She wiggles her feet, flashing the points of her stilettos, and winces.  

“At your height I assume you need that ambition,” Maggie says.

“You’re like an inch taller than me,” Lucy grumbles, even as Alex laughs.  “Whatever, we don’t need your help.”

“Where are you going?” Alex says, wiggling her shoulders and shifting Lucy’s weight.  “It’s Sunday.”

“Pinch hitting on a case for Matt,” Maggie says around a yawn.  “Shouldn’t take too long.”

“Overachiever,” Lucy mumbles.  “Our Sunday sounds much more fun.   Mostly because Alex is going to make me breakfast.”

“Say what now?”  Alex cranes her neck around to glare at Lucy.

“And on that note, I’m out,” Maggie says.  She leans forward to kiss Alex, dodging Lucy’s flailing limbs.  “There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

“I love you,” Alex and Lucy say at the same time, and Alex contorts her back so she can drive an elbow into Lucy’s ribs.  “Stop hitting on my girlfriend.”

“Well, if _you’d_ made me coffee, I’d be hitting on you,” Lucy says with a grumble.  “Let’s go, we have tactical plans to make.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Alex says, shouldering through the door.

“That was one hell of a hickey on Maggie’s neck,” Lucy says as she hops off of Alex’s back and strides into the elevator.  “Who knew you were a biter, Danvers?”

“Be nice or I won’t share my coffee.”

“Tyrant.”

In the apartment, Alex toes her running shoes off while Lucy flops onto the couch and kicks her heels off.

“Coffee,” Lucy yells half into the couch cushions.  “Also, can I use your shower?”

“Please, by all means, make yourself at home,” Alex says.  “You can borrow some clothes, too.”

“You’re the best,” Lucy says, hauling herself up and heading to the bathroom, shedding her dress on the way.  She leaves the door open as the water starts and talks over the sound.  “So, what’s your plan for the wee ones?”

Alex stretches out on the couch with her coffee and stares up at the ceiling.  “Haven’t gotten much further than Kara, Lena, forced interaction.”

“Well, there’s an investors’ meeting on Thursday morning, so can you either do it like _now_ or wait until after that?”  A clatter of shampoo bottles sounds from the bathroom, followed by a curse.  “Because we’re proposing a new strategy for deferred losses and it’s a bitch to present.”

“You do realize that you’re not _actually_ an L Corp executive, right?”

“I came up with this damn strategy, Danvers, it’s my baby,” Lucy yells.  “I’m all for getting your idiot sister to finally ask Lena out but not when it’ll affect her work.”

“I was actually thinking about getting Lena to ask Kara out,” Alex says.  

“That’s a terrible idea,” Lucy says.  “Come on, Alex, you know Lena won’t ever do that.  She’ll spend the next six years thinking it’s too soon after Kara’s disaster boyfriend for her to ask Kara out.”

“I think that’s a little bit hyperbolic.  Lena’s not exactly a coward.”

“Of course not, she’s just a self-sacrificing idiot genius,” Lucy says.  “She’ll throw herself on her sword and you know it.”

“Smartass,” Alex mumbles into her coffee.  “Fine, fair enough.  So how do we make that work?”

“Oh, sweet summer child,” Lucy says, popping out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.  “Leave that to me.  You just make sure Lena is at the DEO this afternoon.”  She shakes her head and sprays water all over Alex.  “Now give me coffee.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Lena says, not looking up from her phone as she weaves her way through the desks in the command center at the DEO.  “What’s so important?”

“Hello to you too, friend, it’s nice to see you,” Alex says.  “Got a few things for you to look at in the lab.”

“You know, for someone who regularly tells me how I work too much, you _did_ call me in here on a Sunday when I actually wasn’t working.”

“What can I say, I’m a mass of hypocrisy,” Alex says with a shrug.  She leads them around a corner and abruptly shoves Lena through a doorway.

“What--”

“Hey there, BFF,” Lucy says, sidling past Lena and out the door.  “We’ll be back in a few hours, you kids have fun.”

“Hey--” Kara yells, catching an unsteady Lena easily.  

“Bye, kids,” Alex says with a wink, shutting the door and locking it.  She flops against the door with a sigh.  “How long should we leave them in there?”

“Eh,” Lucy says, shrugging.  “Let’s go get dinner.  Bring your better half.  I’m going to beat both of you at pool.”

“I can hear you!” Kara shouts through the door.

 

* * *

 

“So I know I said it’s great that you guys are all buddy-buddy now,” Kara says, pacing back and forth.  “But those two are a _menace_.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Lena says, sitting delicately down into one of the chairs at the conference table.  “Do you have any idea what this is about?”

“No,” Kara says, too quickly, and she clears her throat loudly.

“Kara.”  Lena folds her arms over her chest.  

“And I mean not that I’m upset by it or anything but how _did_ you guys become such good friends?  Like, I get it with Lucy because she’s your secret bodyguard--”

“She’s not my bodyguard,” Lena says with a sigh.

“And I get it with Alex, because you both geek out all the time over science--”

“It’s not _geeking_ \--”

“--but the three of you together?  I’m just--”

“We’re friends,” Lena says with a shrug.  “There’s a particular camaraderie to always being judged in relation to your siblings.”

“Oh,” Kara says faintly.  “I don’t think I ever thought of that.  Alex never--”

“She wouldn’t,” Lena says, shrugging once again.  “You know she wouldn’t.”

“Right,” Kara says, back to pacing.  

“You realize that it’s not like we’re friends because we hate our sibling or something, right?” Lena adds.  “I mean, Lex _is_ a mass murderer, so that’s different, obviously.  But Alex and Lucy aren’t sitting on any deep-seated rage toward you and Lois or anything like that.”

“Right,” Kara says again.”

“Kara,” Lena says with a sigh.  “What are we doing here?  Did Lucy tell you anything?”

“We could just hang out, you know,” Kara says, pacing more rapidly.  “We’ve both been so busy recently, I barely see you anymore--”

“We had lunch four times this week,” Lena points out.

“Right,” Kara says, her voice a high-pitched squeak.

“Kara,” Lena says quietly.  “You do realize that the last time you were this awkward around me it was when you were telling me my mother was running a violently anti-alien organization that was trying to commit genocide, right?”

It’s enough to stop Kara’s pacing, at least, and Lena watches blankly as Kara sits down in one of the chairs on the other end of the table, then moves halfway down the table, finally settling on a seat on the table next to Lena.  She pulls on her cuffs, yanking the sleeves of her sweater until her hands are wrapped in them entirely.

“When Rhea and the Daxamites tried to invade,” she says after a long moment of silence.  “Do you remember what you said in your office, when you were telling me about your plan?”  

“I didn’t know for sure that you were Supergirl, then,” Lena says, not meeting Kara’s eyes.  

“You asked if I knew that Kara Danvers’ boyfriend was a Daxamite, and that your weapon would kill him, too.”

“I remember,” Lena says quietly.

“I loved him,” Kara says, pulling at her sleeves more and staring around the room.  “In some way.  I don’t regret my time with him, even if it wasn’t perfect, but I also don’t regret pulling the trigger and sending him away.  But when I think back to that day, to the way you looked at Supergirl when you knew that plan would hurt me, to how I felt when both of you had been up on that ship and I just--”

Lena’s hand curls around her elbow, softly and hesitantly, and Kara sucks in a sharp breath and stares up at the ceiling.  

“I did love him, but when I was fighting Rhea, I wasn’t doing it for him.  Or for National City, or the planet.  I was doing it for Alex, and J’onn, and Eliza, and-- and for you.  I wanted to stop them for you.”

“What are you saying, Kara?”  Her voice wobbles, lilting towards a whisper, and Kara knots her fingers together at the default fake calm on Lena’s face, the one she wears at press conferences and in business meetings and never around Kara.

“I’m saying,” Kara says, hands clenched together.  “Or asking, I guess, I’m not _telling_ you--”

“Kara,” Lena grinds out.  Her hand tightens on Kara’s arm and it’s enough to stop Kara’s ramble before it picks up speed, and Kara takes a deep breath.

“Do you want to go out sometime?  On a date.  With me.  A date with me.”

Lena stares at her, shoulders slumping and spine curving and Kara jumps up to stand.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to, I didn’t mean to--”

“Yes,” Lena says. “Of course.  Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” Lena says again.  “I want to go on a date with you.”

Kara drops down into a chair, knees giving out, and grins widely at Lena, who starts to speak only to be cut off by a blaring speaker.

“I can’t believe you two didn’t take an hour to figure that out!” Lucy’s disembodied voice bellows out of the speaker, framed by Alex's unmistakable laugh and making them both jump.  “I had ten bucks on it taking more than an hour--”

Kara hits the speaker with her laser vision, leaving it a smoking pile of rubble to fall to the floor and the room free from Lucy's voice.

 

* * *

 

 

Fingers snap in front of Lena’s face, jerking her out of her focus at her computer.  She jerks back and shakes her head, nearly spilling her coffee.

“What are you doing here?”

“We have a meeting,” Lucy says, one eyebrow up and gesturing to the stack of folders on Lena’s desk.  “Because it’s September and the filings are due next month.”

“Oh.”  Lena rubs at her forehead.  “Right.  Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were daydreaming,” Lucy announces with a smirk.  She discards the folders and flops down into the chair across from Lena.  “ _Sap_.”

“I am not,” Lena says automatically, unable to stop the smile spreading back across her face.  It hasn’t left her face since the day before.

“You nearly walked into a wall leaving the DEO yesterday,” Lucy says.  “With one Kara Danvers, who you are now dating.  It’s been nearly 24 hours.  You’re in full-on googly eyes, daydreaming, honeymoon stage.”

“I am-- okay, fine,” Lena grumbles.  “Maybe a little bit.  But that’s not what I was doing.”

“Then what _were_ you doing?  Googling lesbian sex tips?”

“Please,” Lena says with a sniff.  “I don’t need to google that and you know it.”  She levels a glare at Lucy for a moment before sighing.  “I’m trying to figure out where we should go to dinner.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have a spreadsheet somewhere with date ideas you’ve been accummulating for the last year of pining after her.”  Lucy balls up a post-it from one of her files and throws it at Lena’s forehead.  

“None of those work for a first date,” Lena says with a groan. She slumps down in her chair.  “What do I _do_?  I told her I wanted to plan this one, because I’m an idiot, clearly, and now--”

“Calm down,” Lucy says, rolling her eyes.  “She’s so into you that you could even cook for her and she’d still love it to pieces.  And you’re _not_ a good cook.”

“Better than you are, asshole,” Lena mutters.  “And it’s not my fault the entire Danvers family are all genius chefs.”

“Treat it like a business problem.”  Lucy throws another ball of paper at her.  “Do a SWOT analysis, leverage your resources.”

Lena blinks at her, and Lucy huffs out a sigh, flopping back into her chair with a flail.  “Text Alex, dumbass.”

“Oh,” Lena says slowly.  “Good idea.”

“Gee, you think?”  Lucy glances at her watch.  “This meeting was a sham, by the way, because I already texted Alex and she’ll be here in ten.”

“What?”

“If you think both of us haven’t blocked off the absolute entirety of today to handling both your and Kara’s emotional freakouts then you’re clearly not as smart as I always thought.”

“I hate you,” Lena says, just as Alex walks into the office.

“This is what I get for bringing you both lunch and all of my knowledge and wisdom about my sister?” Alex sits down next to Lucy and offers her a takeout box.  “No food for you, then.”

“I hate everyone,” Lena mumbles.

“Sure you do,” Alex and Lucy say at the same time.

 

* * *

 

Lena rolls over at the buzz of her phone, squinting sleepily.  It buzzes three more times, and she groans.

“Just answer it,” Kara mumbles, rolling over and curling around Lena’s back.

“Don’t wanna.”  Lena sinks back against her with a sigh.

“You know it’s Lucy and she’s not gonna shut up.”

Lena hums noncommittally and rolls over to bury her head in the soft cotton of Kara’s t-shirt.  “She can wait.”

Kara’s hand slides easily up and down Lena’s back, smoothing her shirt over and over, and there’s a solid thirty seconds of Lena falling almost back to sleep before Kara’s phone starts to buzz.

Lena groans and yanks the blankets up over them.  “Make them go away.”

Kara laughs and frees up one of her arms to feel around on the nightstand for her phone, bring it under the blankets with them.

“No,” Lena whines.  “It’s too early.”

“It’s almost noon,” Kara says.  She unlocks her phone and ignores that eight texts she has from Lucy, pausing on the one from Alex.

_So did she sweep you off your feet?_

She shows the text to Lena before typing out her response and then discarding her phone to wrap around Lena once more. “Isn’t sweeping of your feet supposed to be more of a me thing?  Since I’m the one who can fly and everything.”

“Just because I can’t juggle cars doesn’t mean I don’t have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Lena says.

Outside of the blankets, Lena’s phone buzzes again.  She groans and rolls back over, pulling Kara with her, to reach out and fumble for her phone.

She has fifteen texts from Lucy, ranging from supportive to wholly inappropriate, and ignore them all until the last one.

_At eight it’ll have been 24 hours and we’re taking you both out to dinner so be decent by then_

“Apparently we have dinner plans,” she says, turning back to face Kara.  

“That’s hours from now,” Kara says.  Her fingers tug absently, gently at the hem of Lena’s shirt, head pillowed on her other arm.  “What do you want to do all day?”

“Kara Danvers, are you propositioning me?” Lena raises an eyebrow.  “From what Lucy’s been texting all morning she assumes we’re already well past propositioning.”  

“So I _shouldn’t_ tell her that you rented out sixteen food trucks for our first date and then ate too many soup dumplings and passed out in a food coma at ten?”  Her fingers abandon the t-shirt and slide under the cotton to find the ridges of Lena’s spine, mapping the edges of each vertebra slowly.  

“Definitely not,” Lena mumbles, pushing closer and hooking a leg over Kara’s.  “Hey.”

“Hey,” Kara says, soft and smiling.  She pushes forward the rest of the way and kisses Lena, gentle and sleepy.  Her touch grows firmer, pulling Lena against her and then rolling onto her back, lifting Lena easily over her.  An undignified squeak sounds from somewhere in the back of Lena’s throat, followed by a laugh, and then she kisses Kara again, and again, and again.

“So,” she says eventually, pulling back just enough to speak and then laughing in spite of herself when KAra whines and tightens her grip.  She cranes her neck around to glance at the clock, only for Kara to lean up to kiss her neck instead, drawing a shudder from Lena.  “We have ten hours.”

“Mhm,” Kara says against the side of Lena’s neck.  Lena’s eyes slip shut.  “What do you want to do for ten hours?”

“Weren’t you propositioning me?” Lena pushes at the hem of Kara’s shirt, fingernails scraping along the skin over her ribcage.  Kara bites down on Lena’s ear in response, dragging a whimper out of Lena.  “Taking that as a yes.”

Even with ten hours’ notice, they still wind up late to dinner.


	3. Chapter 3

Alex comes back from a training session with one of the tactical teams to four missed calls from Lucy and three from Lena’s assistant.  In all the years they’ve been colleagues and then friends, Lucy has only called her maybe ten times, opting instead for rapid-fire text messages and expansive emails; Jess has never once called her and is only in Alex’s phone as a formality since Kara and Lena started dating officially.  She shoves her training weapon into one of her teammates’ arms and scrambles to unlock her phone, hitting the speed dial for Lucy’s number immediately.

“What happened?” she says as soon as Lucy answers.  

“We’re okay,” Lucy says, her voice deceptively light in the way that it is whenever she’s hurried or harried or exhausted.  “Minus the fact that  _ someone _ went to work feeling like shit and wound up in the emergency room because her appendix exploded.”

“What the--” Alex slumps against the wall.  “Lena’s in the hospital?  Did you call Kara?”

“Oh, she’s here, don’t you worry about that,” Lucy says drily.  “She heard the sirens at Lena’s building like a creeper and showed up before the paramedics even made it up to her office.”

“Is she okay?”  Alex pushes away from the wall and half-jogs to the locker room, phone wedged between her ear and shoulder as she changes into street clothes.  “What hospital?”

“Presbyterian,” Lucy says.  “And yeah, she’s going to be fine.  Small surgery, probably one night for observation, but aside from that she’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Alex says, finally pausing and pulling in a deep breath.  “What about you?  Are you okay?”

“No appendicitis here,” Lucy says, full of fake cheer.  

“Lucy,” Alex says quietly.  “You okay?”

“I--yeah,” Lucy says eventually.  “I knew she wasn’t feeling well, but I thought it was just a stomach bug or something  But then she just-- collapsed.  I was gone for five minutes and I came into her office and she was on the floor and I’d left her alone and I’m supposed to be--”

“Lucy,” Alex says again, forgoing the elevator and jogging down the stairs to keep her cell signal strong.  “Luce, this isn’t your fault.”

“I left her alone,” Lucy says, small and shaking.  “If someone had been coming after her again I wouldn’t have been there.”

“You were one room away.”  Alex flags a taxi down and snaps the address out at him.  “You have a perimeter established and wired that office within an inch of its life.  If anyone had tried to breach it,you would have known.  You’re protecting her from murderers, not appendicitis.”

“When are you getting here?” Lucy mutters.  “They’re letting Kara observe the surgery but I can’t take a phone and someone needs to keep Jess on top of things and make sure the board doesn’t find out--”

“I’m a block away,” Alex says.  She throws a twenty into the front seat of the taxi and bolts, jogging the rest of the way and into the emergency bay.  Lucy is in the waiting room, pacing, her shoulders weak without the pressure of a military uniform to hold them up; her suit jacket looks too big, her shirt wrinkled, her mouth tight.  “Here.”

Alex shoves her phone into her pocket as she catches Lucy’s eye and lets Lucy walk right into her arms.  “Everything is okay,” Alex says softly, arms tight around Lucy and half holding her up.   “She’s going to be okay.”

“Fuck,” Lucy mumbles, and Alex feels it in her shoulder more than hears it.  Lucy’s shaking and Alex’s stomach twists around itself because this is Lucy, after three tours in the Middle East and fighting alongside the DEO for years, who carried the whole agency on her back when J’onn was gone without even the illusion of flinching, who was willing to throw her entire military career away to break J’onn and Alex out of a prison transport, shaking in her arms and panicking because Lena Luthor’s appendix burst.

“She’s going to be okay,” Alex says again.  “It’s a routine procedure and the doctors here are great and you got her here immediately.  She’s going to be okay.”

Lucy shudders, pressing closer for a long minute, and Alex holds on tighter, waiting until Lucy’s breathing steadies and her limbs calm.  

“Okay,” Lucy says, taking a deep breath and pulling back.  Alex’s hands stay steady on her shoulders, stopping her from pulling too far out of Alex’s orbit, and Lucy rubs at her eyes tiredly.  She turns Lucy around and guides her to an empty chair, lowering her gently down into it.  

“I’m going to go check on Kara, okay?”

“Yeah,” Lucy mumbles.  She catches ahold of Alex’s hand as she turns to leave, holding tight with both of hers.  “Can you-- don’t tell anyone--”

“Won’t say a word,” Alex says softly.  She reaches for Lucy with her free hand, fingers coming up short just shy of Lucy’s cheek and redirecting to the lapel of her jacket, straightening it with a careful tug that keeps her fingertips from touching Lucy’s collarbone.  She offers a smile, aiming for reassuring and landing somewhere in the vicinity of restrained instead, and extracts her hand from Lucy’s so she can leave.  Her breath comes in quiet tremors as she makes her way through the hospital, glaring and flashing her FBI badge as necessary to get to the surgical wing.

Kara’s standing in an observation room with her arms wrapped around herself, and she crumples into Alex’s arms just like Lucy had.  The broad windows in front of them show Lena on the operating table, sedated as the surgeon closes.

“You okay?” Alex says quietly, unwilling to break the silence in the room and unable to look away from the operating room.  With how often people were trying to assassinate Lena, somehow Alex had never considered the possibility of her best friend winding up in emergency surgery for something so mundane.  

“Yeah,” Kara mumbles.  “She’s going to be fine.  It just-- it really scared me.  I should have gotten her to just go to the doctor this morning, she swore she was fine--”

“She’s going to be,” Alex says.  “It’s an appendectomy.  She felt fine yesterday when we all went to lunch so it clearly wasn’t an issue until this morning, so it was caught early and she got here in plenty of time.  She’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah,” Kara says again, dropping her head onto Alex’s shoulder.  “Where’s Lucy?”

“On the phone with Jess,” Alex says easily.  “If the press gets wind of this the board will try to push her out again and she’ll lose her damn mind until she fixes it.”

“Right,” Kara says.  She sighs, tired and shallow.  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”

“Luce called,” Alex says.  “And I was on a training exercise.  Didn’t get back til half an hour ago and didn’t have my phone with me.”

Inside the operating room, the surgeon steps back from the table with loose shoulders.  She turns and waves obviously up towards them, offering a thumbs up before disappearing out of the room.  Kara slumps into Alex’s side, and Alex lets out a sigh of her own.  

“They said we can do one person at a time in recovery,” Kara says.  “I know you--”

“You go,” Alex says firmly.  “I’m going to get Lucy out of here, she’s climbing the walls.  We’ll come back later tonight.”

“Are you sure?”  Kara’s already edging towards the door, but she asks anyways, and Alex rolls her eyes.

“Positive.  Call me when she’s in a room, we’ll come then.”

“I love you,” Kara says, darting forward and yanking Alex up into a too-tight hug before disappearing towards the recovery room.  Alex is still wincing from the pressure when Kara’s out the door, and she sets off back to the waiting room to where Lucy is still slumped in her chair, head dropped back and eyes closed but one heel tapping rapidly on the floor.

“Hey,” Alex says, dropping down to sit next to her.  “She’s out of surgery.  All good.  Kara’s going to wait for her in recovery.” 

Lucy all but melts back into her chair, pushing out a loud breath, and Alex stands back up and grabs for Lucy’s wrists, hauling her up to her feet.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.  You need to get some rest.”

“I’m fine--”

“One person at a time in recovery, so we can’t see her for a while.  Kara’s going to call once she’s moved to a room and we’ll come back.  Until then, you’re coming with me and taking a nap.  If you’re nice I’ll buy you lunch, too.”

“Is this how you got Maggie to go out with you?” Lucy grumbles, nonetheless leaning into Alex’s side and allowing herself to be guided out of the hospital.  Alex ignores her and calls a taxi to take them to her apartment.  Lucy is half-asleep by the time they get there, and Alex manhandles her into the elevator and through the front door, depositing her unceremoniously on the couch.  Lucy mumbles something unintelligible and curls up, kicking her shoes off, and finally falls asleep the rest of the way.

Alex settles a blanket over her carefully, lingering for a long moment and considering the way Lucy had crumbled in the hospital, how she’d never seen Lucy Lane waver before, before settling at the kitchen table with her laptop to catch up on work.

 

* * *

Alex lets herself into Lena’s apartment, juggling an armful of bags from the grocery store, and kicks the door shut behind her.

“Hey!” she yells.  Kara materializes with a swift rush of air, offloading half of the bags from Alex’s hands, before the door has shut fully.  “Thanks.”

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s drinks night,” Alex says, bypassing Kara and heading to the kitchen. 

“You didn’t cancel?”

“Obviously not,” Alex says.  “Why would we?”

“Why would you what?” Lucy says, pushing the front door open with one elbow and already kicking her shoes off.  “Wait, what-- I thought I was hitting the store?” She brandishes her own grocery bags at Alex.

“No, you said you didn’t have time.”  Alex deposits her bags on the counter and yanks the rest free from Kara’s arms.  “Guess we’re doubling up.”

“Guys, you were supposed to cancel!” Kara says.  “Lena’s been out of the hospital for like two days, she can’t--”

“Okay, one,” Alex says, shaking her hair out of her face.  “She had her appendix out.  Barely counts.  And two, as you may remember, we were  _ there _ when she got out.”

“She can’t drink!”

“So we didn’t bring alcohol.”  Lucy rolls her eyes and pushes past Kara.  “Duh.”

“Oh,” Kara says, finally peering into the bags Alex is unloading.  “Okay.”

“Also, you have to leave,” Lucy adds.  “Drinks night rules.  Siblings not allowed.”

“Hey!” Kara says.  “I’m her girlfriend, I’m not leaving--”

“Kara,” Alex says, hands out.  “Lucy’s being an asshole.  Ignore her.”

“It’s the rules,” Lucy says stubbornly.  She pulls a bag of pita chips free from her bag and throws them to Alex to add to the other bag of pita chips and the hummus Alex had brought.  “No girlfriends, either.  Please note the conspicuous lack of Maggie.”

“Kara,” Lena says from the hallway to her bedroom, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folder carefully over her stomach.  All three of them whip around.  “You don’t have to leave.”

“Hey, gimpy,” Alex says.

“It’s tradition, Luthor,” Lucy whines.  “Two hours.  You guys can be separated for two hours.”

“It’s not some sacred rite of passage,” Alex says, rolling her eyes.  “It’s drinks night.  C’mon, Lucy, seriously?”

“Fine,” Lucy grumbles.  “But I still reserve the right to complain about siblings.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Kara says, unloading Lucy’s groceries and offering her the box of Oreos.

“Underappreciated Siblings Club,” Lucy says around an Oreo.  “Where we get drunk and talk about what it’s like to always be the overshadowed sibling.”

Kara stares at her, shifting slowly over to look at Alex instead, mouth working silently.

Alex rolls her eyes.  “It’s just an excuse to make sure we all hang out every few weeks.  Lucy’s the only one who actually calls it a club.”  She produces a carton of soup from the last of the bags.  “Kara, can you get her to the couch?”

“I can walk--”

“Shush,” Kara says, picking up Lena gently and floating over to the couch to deposit her and spread a blanket over her legs.  “Do you need another pillow?  Blanket?  Alex, where’s the--”

“Soup,” Alex says, leaning over the back of the couch to hand Kara a tray with the soup on it.  She reaches down to hug Lena gently after handing the soup off.  “How’re you feeling?”

“Like someone cut me open,” Lena deadpans.  “And ready to go back to work.”

“Absolutely not,” Kara says with a glare.  “One week.  Doctor’s orders.”

“Alex is a doctor,” Lena says.  “She could--”

“Nice try,” Lucy says, nudging at Lena’s feet until there’s room for her on the couch.  She curls under Lena’s blanket and munches on another Oreo.  Kara’s phone rings and Lucy throws a pillow at her and yells  _ “No phones!” _

“It’s J’onn, there’s a--”

“Go,” Lena says.  “I’ll be fine, Kara, really.”

“Are you sure?” Kara wavers, glancing between Lena and Alex and Lucy.

“We promise your girlfriend will be perfectly fine when you get back,” Lucy says.  “Don’t you trust us?”

“Not you,” Kara mumbles.  She leans down to kiss Lena gently.  “Call me if you need anything.  And don’t let Lucy talk you into anything stupid.”

“Honestly, we all know Alex is the one with terrible ideas,” Lucy says, prodding at Kara’s side with one foot.  

“I promise I won’t move from the couch,” Lena says.

“She’ll be fine,” Alex says.  She pokes at Kara’s shoulder.  “Do you need me to come with you?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Kara says.  “It’s your night off.  I got this.”  She kisses Lena again, hugs Alex, and slaps the top of Lucy’s head gently on her way out.

Lena shoves her foot into Lucy’s ribs once Kara’s out the window.  “What was up with that?”

“What?”

“The whole kicking my sister out thing,” Alex says, settling down on the other couch.  

Lucy huffs out a sigh.  “Are you sure you can’t drink yet?  I need a drink.”

“I can’t, but you can,” Lena says, waving towards the kitchen.  “You know where everything is.”

“What’s up?” Alex says, watching with a crease in her forehead as Lucy shuffles into the kitchen and pulls a bottle of scotch out.  “Everything okay?”

Lucy pours herself a glass and drains half of it.  

“Lucy,” Lena says slowly, pushing herself up straighter and wincing at the pull on her stitches.  

“My dad called today,” Lucy says, staring down into her scotch.  “With a job offer.”

“A what now?”  Alex stops with a pita chip towering with hummus halfway to her mouth.  “You  _ have _ a job.”

“The National War College,” Lucy says quietly.  “Wants me to teach a course on contemporary warfare in the new military climate.”

“The new military climate?” Lena echoes.

“Aliens,” Alex says.  “They want to know how to fight aliens.”

“Yep.”  Lucy finishes her scotch and pours another one.  

“Whoa,” Alex says with a deep breath.  “Aren’t you really young for that?”

“Yeah, well, haven’t you heard?” Lucy holds her glass up in a lazy salute and shrugs.  “Apparently I’m being groomed.  Imagine that.  My father hasn’t just been pushing me for the last ten years just to push me.  He’s not going to make it to the joint chiefs but he wants me to.”

“Whoa,” Alex says again.  “Isn’t joint chiefs like...incredibly far down the line?”

“He plays the long game,” Lucy says with a sigh.  “So yeah.  That’s a thing that happened today.”

Lena props her elbow on the back of the couch and leans her chin onto her arm, appraising Lucy from across the room.  “Congratulations,” she says eventually.  

“Yeah, lucky me,” Lucy mutters.  

“Are you going to take it?”

“The DOD is full of shit,” Lucy says, barking out a laugh.  “Before I came back to work with the DEO I spent a year butting heads with them and their bullshit xenophobic approach to aliens.  I don’t exactly want to be a part of that.”

“So tell him no,” Alex says.  She stands from the couch and strides into the kitchen to take the bottle from Lucy.  

“The thing is, though,” Lucy says, grabbing for the bottle and glaring when Alex holds it out of her reach.  “This is where the DOD’s policies are built.”

“So you could potentially influence them?” Lena says, picking at the edge of her blanket.  

“That’s not nothing.”  Alex shelves the scotch and offers Lucy a glass of water instead.

“Guys, what do I do?” Lucy says with a whine.  She swallows half of the water and slumps over the counter, dropping her chin onto her forearms and groaning.

“You’re the youngest lieutenant colonel in the US Army,” Lena says drily.  “Doesn’t decision making capability come as part of the job description?”

“Fuck off, miss CEO-of-a-Fortune-Fifty-at-24,” Lucy says, flipping her middle finger up.

“I think you should take it.”  Alex hooks an arm around Lucy’s waist and hauls her upright, pulling her back into the living room and depositing her on the couch with Lena once more.  She squishes down between Lucy and the arm of the couch and slings her legs over Lucy’s automatically.  “You’d be good at it, you  _ do _ know a lot of about the subject matter, and even if you don’t want what your dad does out of it you’ll learn a lot and it’ll be a good thing to have put on your resume.”

“Also, didn’t Lois just win another Pulitzer?” Lena adds.  “And didn’t you say you wanted to stick it to her?”

Lucy groans and drops her head back onto the couch.  “She’s such a douche.”

“Eloquent,” Lena says.  

“Charmingly so,” Alex says.  

“Aren’t you two supposed to just agree with me when I complain about my overachieving sister?  Isn’t that the whole point of this?”

“And here I thought the whole point of it was to grace you with our beautiful and magnificently engaging company,” Alex says, locking eyes with Lena over Lucy’s head.  Lena smirks and swallows a spoonful of her soup, staying quiet while Lucy groans again.  “And I’ll say it yet again: my sister is a literal superhero and Lena’s brother is a megalomaniac in prison forever, so you’re seriously barking up the wrong tree looking for sympathy about Lois here.”

“But she’s such a butthead,” Lucy say petulantly.

“Is that so,” Lena drawls.

“I hate you,” Lucy says, stealing her soup and handing Lena the Oreos instead.

“So, you’re taking it?”

“I guess,” Lucy mumbles.  “What about drinks nights?”

“Skype exists for a reason, you know,” Alex says.  She pushes gently at Lucy’s shoulder.  “Besides, we won’t miss you at all.”

Lucy rolls her head over to glare at Alex.  “Liar.”

“Truth,” Alex counters.  “Lena, tell her.”

“I’m too injured to take sides right now,” Lena says, hands up.  “But I  _ am _ in DC every few months for work.  It’ll be nice to have a place to crash.”

“Oh please,” Lucy says with a snort.  “Don’t act like you don’t stay in some egregiously fancy hotel every time.  Your life is not that tragic.”  She shoves at Lena’s shoulder roughly and reclaims the Oreos.

“Stitches!” Lena says, pointing at her stomach.

“You had your appendix out, you gigantic baby,” Lucy says.  “And you get a doctor-mandated week to lay around while your girlfriend plays doctor--”

“Oh, God,” Alex mutters.  She slaps a hand over Lucy’s mouth.  “Please go back to complaining about your unprecedented and meteoric rise in the military, will you?”

The balcony doors open with a  _ whoosh _ and Kara flies in, landing in the kitchen.  “Who’s complaining about what?”

“Lucy’s abandoning us all to go teach at the National War College,” Lena says drolly.  “Are you done already?”

“Yeah, cat up a tree kind of thing.”  Kara wedges her way between Lena’s back and the arm of the couch, propping her shoulder and staring wide-eyed at Lucy.  “You’re leaving?”

“I’m not  _ leaving _ -leaving,” Lucy says.  “Just for a little bit.  It’s a good career move.”

“But DC is so far away!”  Kara’s bottom lip juts out and her arms tighten around Lena, who winces at the pressure.

“Babe,” Lena says, tapping at her forearms.  “I was just saying, I go to DC all the time, and you can fly there in about ten minutes.”

“So really, the only person who won’t be seeing all of  _ this  _ on the regular,” Lucy says, gesturing dramatically at herself.  “Is Short Danvers.  Which is  _ tragic _ for her.”

“I have no idea how I’ll survive,” Alex says without looking away from her phone.  Lucy flops over into Alex’s side, draping over her shoulders to plant an overly loud kiss to her cheek.

“I’ll Skype you every single day just to be sure you’re doing okay,” Lucy says, kissing her again.

“I’m delighted,” Alex says flatly.  She relaxes into the couch, and bringing Lucy with her.

“Stop texting on drinks night,” Lucy says, too loud and right into her ear.  “No work allowed.  It’s against the rules.”

“How are there  _ rules _ to hanging out with friends?” Kara says from the other end of the couch, preoccupied with massaging Lena’s shoulders.  

“Be best friends with a lawyer and see what happens,” Lena mumbles out, not opening her eyes.

“It’s not work,” Alex says.  “It’s Maggie.”

“Well,” Lucy says, tucking her head into Alex’s shoulder.  “Tell her to either come hang out or to leave us alone.  We’re very busy.”

“Lena’s half asleep,” Alex points out without looking up.  “And I just need to--” She cuts herself off, typing more fervently into the phone.  

“Everything okay?” Kara says, hands pausing on Lena’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” Alex mutters.

“Hey,” Lucy says, sitting up straight.  “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Alex says, discarding her phone and looking up with a bright smile.  “All good.”

“Liar,” the rest of the room says in chorus, and Alex glares at all of them.

“We just had an argument earlier,” she says with a huff.  “It’s fine now.  She’s just checking in.”

“Do you want to go?” Lucy says quietly.  “You know it’s fine if you do.”

“No,” Alex says.  She pauses and then rubs at her eyes tiredly.  “Maybe.  Yes.  I don’t know.  We resolved everything already, I just feel-- I don’t know.”

“I’ll take you,” Kara says, easing her way out from under Lena, who’s all but asleep.  “Supergirl taxi service.”

“It’s okay,” Alex starts, trailing off when Lucy glares at her and punches her in the arm.

“Go.  K and I can hold down the Lena fort.  How hard can it be to babysit one snoring post-operative billionaire?”

“I heard that,” Lena grumbles without opening her eyes.  “Alex, go.”

“You heard the lady,” Kara says.  “You can tell me about your club on the way.”

Alex groans and allows herself to be pulled to her feet and flown out the window, shouting a goodbye out over her shoulder and allowing Kara to sweep her up for the trip.  

“So what’s up with you and Maggie?”

“It’s nothing,” Alex mumbles, doing her best to avoid Kara despite the fact that she’s basically flying on Kara’s back.  Kara scoffs and turns into a barrel roll, quickly enough to make Alex dizzy, and Alex curses into the wind.  “Seriously?”

“Come on, what’s up?  You guys don’t fight very often.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Alex says.  “She-- we-- it was about work.  One of her investigations crossed into our jurisdiction and we got the jump on they guy before her team did.”

“Shouldn’t it just matter that he’s been arrested?”

Alex shrugs, closing her eyes against the bite of the cool air.  “They’d been working on that case for a while, I guess.  Long enough that not bringing in the arrest is a big deal with her boss.”

“But--”

“She was right,” Alex says sharply.  “I overstepped.”

“Did you even know she was investigating this guy?”  Kara slows and swings around, maneuvering Alex until she’s standing on Kara’s feet and glaring directly at her.

“Don’t  _ do _ that a three thousand feet.”  

“Did you?”

“No,” Alex says with a sigh.  “Not for sure.  She never told me, we don’t tend to talk about active cases.”

“Then you didn’t do anything wrong!”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Alex starts, only to devolve into a yelp as Kara goes into a dive.  They land on the balcony at her apartment and Alex stumbles off of Kara’s boots with a curse.  “Jerk.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Kara says firmly.  “And Maggie will figure that out.  I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Alex says, rolling her eyes.  She hugs Kara anyways.  “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Kara says with a grin.  She waves, short and sharp, through the balcony door to where Maggie’s standing from the couch, and takes off with a gust that flutters the ends of Alex’s hair.  


	4. Chapter 4

Lucy, growing up, went to eight different schools before she landed as West Point.  She’s been deployed on three tours to the Middle East, done a stint at a base in South Korea, and lived out of a shoebox hotel room with a broken air conditioner in San Antonio for six months while wrapping up a case.  All of that moving and somehow, for the first time, just two weeks after she moves to DC, she finds herself violently homesick for National City.

“It’s fine,” she grumbles, phone pinned between her ear and shoulder as she fumbles through her briefcase for her keys.  “I’m just out here all by my lonesome while you’re all texting me pictures from the beach.  Who cares.”

“If we didn’t send you pictures,” Lena says mildly.  “You would complain that we were excluding you.”

“Would not.”  She finally locates her keys, swimming down somewhere under a stack of assignments she has to review.  “Why the hell did you all encourage me to do this?”

“Because it’s a smart career move, and you can affect real change,” Lena recites.  “Don’t act like you’re not actually enjoying the opportunity to define how the military approaches aliens.”

“Don’t be logical, you jerk,” Lucy says, yanking her keys out of her bag with a triumphant growl.  

“I would never,” Lena says.  There’s a sound of shuffling papers over the phone, and Lucy pauses, one eyebrow raised, and glances at her watch.

“Lena Luthor,” she says.  “Don’t tell me you’re still at work at six PM on a Friday.  Kara will _murder_ you.”

“It’s nine in DC,” Lena throws back, the roll of her eyes audible in her voice.  “And you’re just now getting home from work, and I know you brought work with you.”

“Did not,” Lucy lies smoothly.  “I would never.”  She squints at her keys, still struggling to adjust to which of the four identical square keys is for the deadbolt and which is for the doorknob for her new apartment.

“Anyways,” Lena says.  “Kara and Alex are doing sister night, so I’m finishing some things up here.”

“And then you’re going straight home before eight and opening a bottle of wine, yes?”

“Yes ma’am,” Lena says.  “Hypocrite.”

“You love it,” Lucy says with a grin, finally finding the right key and digging it into the lock.  The door swings open and she stumbles back with a yelp, dropping her briefcase, because Alex is standing on the other side and threw a balled up sweatshirt at her face.  “What the--”

“That’s my cue,” Lena says flippantly from the other side of the line.  “Took you long enough to actually go home, you moron.”  A muffled “Have fun!” that unmistakably came from Kara sounds in the background before Lena hangs ups and leaves Lucy standing in the hallway, phone still halfway to her ear, gaping at Alex.

“I opened a bottle of wine,” Alex informs her, belatedly adding a “Hey,” at the end before turning on one heel and making her way to the kitchen.

Lucy follows slowly, retrieving her briefcase and discarding it and her coat on the kitchen table.  “What are you--”

“You left your sweatshirt at my place,” Alex says.  “We drew straws to see who brought it to you.”

“You flew across the continent,” Lucy says slowly.  “To bring me the West Point hoodie you stole two years ago?”

“Yep,” Alex says.  She pours a fresh glass of wine and hands the half-empty one to Lucy, keeping the fuller one for herself.

“You flew to DC,” Lucy says again, blinking rapidly.  “With my hoodie.”

“Well, technically,” Alex says, drawing the words out and shrugging in that way she does when she’s getting away with something, where one shoulder and one side of her mouth rise simultaneously and she rolls her eyes up towards the ceiling.  It’s always driven Lucy insane, because Alex can lie with the best of them when she needs to, but she just fails to ever even try around them. She calls it professional courtesy; Lucy calls it insulting.  

Lucy swallows all of the wine and in her glass and folds her arms over her chest.

“You sounded lonely,” Alex says, smirk fading.  “We were worried.”

“Oh,” Lucy says faintly.  “Really?”

“Really what?”  Alex rolls her eyes and takes Lucy’s glass to refill.  

“You were worried?”

“Of course,” Alex says, offering the glass back to her.  “It’s no fun leaving home, even as an adult.  And frankly, this whole city is garbage and would be even if you didn’t know exactly zero people when you moved here.  Anyone would be lonely doing that.”

Lucy discards her glass on the counter and steps in to hug Alex tightly.  “Thank you,” she mumbles into Alex’s shoulder.  “But I can’t believe you broke into my apartment.”

“What’s a minor felony between friends?” Alex says as Lucy pushes further into her shoulder and sucks in a deep breath.  She holds on tight and doesn’t let go, hugging Lucy the way she hugged Kara in her first years on earth, alone and lonely, not moving away until she’s been let go.  

“Remind me to send Maggie a bottle of whiskey to thank her for giving you up for a few days,” Lucy says when she finally straightens up and pulls back.  

Alex scoffs and rolls her eyes again, pouring herself another glass of wine and discarding the empty bottle, and Lucy raises an eyebrow.  

“Trouble in paradise?”

“No,” Alex says, lying blandly and terribly.  She sighs when Lucy hums noncommittally and disappears towards her bedroom.  “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing my ass,” Lucy half-yells from her bedroom.  “Order some food, we’re getting trashed.”

“Italian?”  

“Indian, you heathen,” Lucy says, reappearing with a scoff, burrowed down into the sweatshirt Alex had brought her.  “Italian, she says.  Who do you think I am?”

“One day you’ll understand.”  Alex flashes her phone at Lucy, showing her the Indian restaurant she’s pulled up.  “Pasta carbs are the best carbs for drinking.”

“Spice is better,” Lucy says, steadying Alex’s wrist with one hand so she can squint at the phone until she pokes at it, selecting her order.  

“It’s adorable that you think you’re ever going to win this argument.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the fact that you’re buying me obscenely expensive lamb vindaloo for dinner,” Lucy says with a smirk.  She taps the phone screen once more with a flourish.  “And a chicken korma for you and we’re good to go.”

“I can order for myself, you know,” Alex says with a sigh.  

“Sure you can, champ,” Lucy says, winking and punching Alex in the shoulder.  “You’re the one who decided to come surprise me, after all.  You knew what you were getting into.”

She hipchecks Alex out of the way and makes her way into the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of scotch and handing it blindly back to Alex.  “So what’s up with you and Maggie?”

Alex huffs out a sigh as she levers herself up to sit on the kitchen counter.  She doesn’t answer for long seconds, accepting the empty glass Lucy offers her and pouring a healthy portion of whiskey into it.  “Work stuff,” she says eventually.

“You do know that if you tell me you’re mad at Maggie because she thinks you work too much then I’m going to take her side, right?  Because you work too much.”  Lucy hops up to sit opposite Alex, kicking easily out at her shin.  

“I do not,” Alex mutters.  She swirls the whiskey around in her glass and shrugs.  “She and Kara got into it a few days ago.  Over a case.”

“Yikes,” Lucy says.  “How’d that happen?”

“There’s been a lot of overlap,” Alex says carefully, jaw tight and shoulders sharp.  “The NCPD science division cases are bumping up against our jurisdiction a lot more since the Alien Amnesty Act, and the Daxamite invasion.  Technically, for better or worse,  jurisdiction always defaults to us in all matters involving alien lifeforms.”

“I’m guessing Maggie isn’t a fan of that.”

Alex laughs, short and dark, and shrugs, sighs, swallows half of her whiskey.  “You could say that.”

“So why’d she and Kara get into it?”

“First she and I got into it,” Alex mutters.  “There was a homicide, of one of the registered individuals from the Amnesty Act.  NCPD caught it first, but jurisdiction transferred when evidence pointed to one of the Fort Rozz escapees.”

“Uh oh,” Lucy says into her whiskey.  She kicks out softly again at Alex’s ankle.  “She didn’t like you taking her case?”

“She has a point, you know,” Alex says, kicking her heels back against the dishwasher rhythmically.  “I’m not an idiot, I know we have a broader jurisdiction than we should.  If an alien sneezes near a crime, we can take the case if we want.  And we normally do.”

“To be fair, the DEO is also better equipped for it,” Lucy points out.

“Yeah, I know,” Alex says.  She takes a slow sip.  “We were arguing and Kara heard and she got into it--”

“Oh, boy,” Lucy mutters.  “That didn’t go well at all, did it?”

“Not so much,” Alex says with half a smile.  “They _really_ got into it and she started yelling at Kara.”

“Christ,” Lucy says. “No wonder you jumped at the opportunity to fly to DC.”

“No, that was already planned,” Alex says, waving one hand dismissively.  “Fortuitous timing is all.”  She drains the rest of her whiskey and slumps back against the wall behind her.  “Better to hang here than sleep on the couch again tonight.”

“Alex,” Lucy says, smiling slow and sad.  “You gotta talk to her.”

“I know,” Alex mumbles.  “I just-- I don’t know.  I feel like I’m supposed to apologize, but I’m also angry, you know?”  She inhales slowly and holds her breath for a long moment.  Lucy waits, fingertips frozen tight around the edge of the counter, gripping hard enough to make her wrist ache.  “She blew up at Kara, Luce.  My _sister_.”

“You love her,” Lucy says softly.  “And you’re happy with her, right?”

“I am,” Alex says with another deep breath.  

“So you work with her to make it work,” Lucy says.  She pours another full glass for herself and swallows most of it in one go.  “I’m not saying she gets a free pass for yelling at Kara, because that’s basically like kicking a puppy and is super just not okay.  But you have to talk to her.  Go to a therapist together, go spend a week just the two of you in a cabin in Oregon, go to a lesbian pottery retreat.  Do what you have to.”

Alex doesn’t answer, wiggling around until she can pull her knees up to her chest, heels resting precariously on the edge of the counter, chin propped on her knee.

“I miss you,” she says eventually.  Lucy’s stomach twists around itself, her fingers clenching somehow tighter to the edge of the counter, but she manages to smile evenly anyways.

“Of course you do,” she says, giving up her deathgrip on the counter to flick her hair over one shoulder.  It catches in the fabric of her hood but she ignores it, winking gratuitously at Alex, who rolls her eyes.  “I’m a delight.”

“Thank you,” Alex says quietly.  “For just-- being here.”

“In my apartment,” Lucy points out.  “That you broke into.  Because you adore me and can’t stand to live without me.  That here?”

“I take it all back,” Alex mutters.  “I don’t miss you at all.”

“Sure you do,” Lucy says, hopping off the counter and yanking at Alex’s ankle until she does the same.  “Now come on, I haven’t watched a single episode of Property Brothers since I moved and I have _so many_ of them saved up.”

Alex lets out a groan even as she shuffles along after Lucy and flops onto the couch.  

 

* * *

 

Lena’s phone buzzes on her desk.  She ignores it, as usual, because if it’s important Jess will come in or Kara will swoop down to land on her balcony, and she desperately wants to finish reviewing the 10-Q so she can leave.

It buzzes again.  Lena pauses long enough to look up from the cash balances and glare at it for a brief moment before turning back.

Again.  And then again, and again, and again.  The glass of her desktop rumbles under her elbows, and Lena huffs out a sigh and grabs for the phone.

_Don’t forget you have to pick the place tonight_

_Also that I’m crashing at your apartment for the weekend_

_Also it’s my shout and i’m a lowly government employee so not that fancy place_

_Also i’m in a whiskey mood so accomodate that_

_Also i’m in your building rn tminus 2 minutes_

The door to her office flies open and Lucy bursts in in a whirlwind of military ribbons and shouts back at Jess to calm down.

“Stop terrorizing my assistant.”  Lena discards her phone and turns back to her computer.  “How do you spend more time dropping in here when you live in DC than when you actually worked here?”

“She’s terrorizing _me_ ,” Lucy says, flopping onto the couch on the other side of the office.  “I liked it more when I was a VP and she was scared of me.  Come on, let’s go.”

“I can’t yet,” Lena says.  “Quarterly statements.”

“Aren’t due for another four days and I know you’re ahead of the curve,” Lucy throws back.  “I have an MBA too, you know.  Don’t try and out-business me.”

“I need another hour.”

“You get--” Lucy cranes her neck around to look at the clock on the wall above her head.  “--eight minutes.  Because that’s about five minutes before Alex is going to text me trying to bail entirely, so we have to say we’re already on our way so she’ll feel guilty and show up.”

That’s enough to get Lena to pause and finally look up from her computer.  “Why does she want to bail?”

“Kara didn’t tell you?”  Lucy blinks across the office at her.  

“She texted last night that she was staying at Alex’s,” Lena says slowly.  “Sister night.  It’s quarter end so she knows I’m stuck in the office all weekend so I assumed she was--”

“Alex and Maggie broke up,” Lucy says, picking at the edge of her skirt carefully.  “Yesterday.  Maggie packed up her stuff this morning and moved out.”  

“Oh,” Lena says.  “Shit.”  She saves the documents open on her laptop and closes them all.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy says with a deep breath.  “No details yet.  But Kara was at the DEO earlier and she said Alex hadn’t told anyone else yet but that we definitely have to take her out tonight.”

“Right,” Lena says absently.  “Let’s go, then.  I’ll pinch hit, you can pay next time.”

“Why--”

“No offense, but I think post-breakup is a perfect time to get a private room at the most expensive bar in California and that’s not in your budget.”  Lena shuts down her laptop and jerks her head towards the bathroom in her office.  “You still have some clothes here if you’d like to change so you’re not drunk in uniform.”

“I knew being BFFs with a billionaire would come in handy one day,” Lucy singsongs.  She has her blouse and shirt off before she’s even halfway to the bathroom, leaving a decidedly un-military trail of clothes behind her.

“You stripping in my office and leaving clothes here is why my entire staff thinks I’m cheating on Kara, you know,” Lena calls after her.

“Not my fault,” Lucy shouts from the bathroom.  She reappears moments later, changed into casual clothes and shaking her hair out of the military-precise knot it had been coiled into.  “Onwards, Luthor.  To the Danvers!”

“I don’t miss you at all when you're in DC,” Lena says, rolling her eyes and allowing herself to be pulled out of the office, pausing just long enough to tell Jess to go home and to make the rest of the accounting staff do the same.

 

* * *

 

_Gonna sit this one out tonight, sorry_

It pops up in the group text, and Lucy pauses long enough to glare at it for a split second before barging into Alex’s apartment.

“Nice try, Danvers.”  She stomps over to Alex’s couch and drops down next to her.   The green blanket that had been Maggie’s and had spent the last year folded on Alex’s couch is gone, and there’s an empty patch of floor by the door where Maggie’s spare boots had always lived.  The grey lockbox that Maggie had stored her service weapon in, separate from the black one that Alex kept a firearm in, is open and empty on the coffee table.  “We’re going out as scheduled and moneybags over there is going to buy us all of the best whiskey in the world.  Go put on pants.”

“Not tonight,” Alex grumbles, sinking further into her corner of the couch and taking a swallow of her drink.  Lucy grabs the glass out of her hand and drains it.

“For fuck’s sake,” she says.  “No one is going to stop you from wallowing, but you’re not wallowing alone and you’re sure as hell not wallowing into _Woodford_.  Lena, back me up on that.”

“She does have a point,” Lena says helpfully.  “Besides, Kara insisted we take you out.”

“So, to recap: pants, towncar, bar, alcohol.  Hop to, Danvers.”

Alex finally moves enough to turn her head and glare at Lucy halfheartedly.

“I’ll pull the sweatpants right off of you and you know it,” Lucy says with a bright smile.  “So unless you _want_ an admittedly extremely attractive military prodigy taking your pants off right now, I suggest you--”

“ _Please_ just change,” Lena finishes for her.  “So I don’t have to call Kara in to stop it when you two inevitably start throwing punches and break things because Lucy tried to take your pants off.”

“Fine,” Alex grumbles.  She pauses long enough to punch Lucy in the arm before crawling off the couch.

“You know, you could have just asked nicely,” Lena says, settling down into Alex’s vacated seat and taking the empty glass from Lucy to sniff.  She wrinkles her nose and frowns.  “Ugh, bourbon.  She probably would’ve been more amenable to that than threats.”

“All of our years of this--” Lucy gestures wildly between the two of them and towards where Alex is lazily changing into a pair of jeans.  “And you think that the only way to get her to stop sulking is to ask nicely?  Come on, Lena, you know better than that.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Alex says, blowing her hair out of her eyes and grumbling at her belt buckle.  

“Then hurry it up, will you?”  Lucy hurls a pillow at her.  Alex dodges it, but it’s enough to draw an eye roll from her anyways.  The bookshelves between the living room and bedroom are full of spotty holes, picture frames turned down and books missing from just a day before.  

“Fine, fine, I’m ready.”  Alex yanks a jacket from her closet and shrugs into it and half-stomps over towards the door.  “Let’s go.”

Lucy bounces off the couch, Lena following at a more reasonable pace.  Lucy hooks one elbow through Lena’s and the other through Alex’s as they make their way down the hallway to the elevator.  

“Let the official meeting of the Underappreciated Siblings Club commence!”

“I hate you,” Alex mumbles.

 

* * *

 

“Have I mentioned recently how much I love you?”  Lucy drops her head onto Lena’s shoulder and slings an arm around her waist.  

“Me, or my money and the private room with bottle service?” Lena says drily.  

“I mean, obviously that,” Lucy says, gesturing vaguely around the dimly lit room in the back of the bar and the six bottles of ostentatiously expensive whiskey at their table and the door that had shut softly after Alex had left for the bathroom moments earlier.  She shifts to prop her chin on Lena’s shoulder.  “But mostly because I never could’ve gotten Alex out of the house without you.”

“Seems unlikely,” Lena says.  She wiggles her shoulder minutely until Lucy sits back with a grumble, and turns to pull her knees up into the booth with her so she can face Lucy.  “How are you?”

“Me?”  Lucy takes a sip of the Macallan in her glass and rolls her eyes and switches it for the Yamazaki in Lena’s hand.  “I’m not the one who got dumped.”

“Lucy,” Lena says quietly.  “Don’t act like I don’t know.”

Lucy clears her throat and glances towards the door-- still shut, still barely holding back the muted rumble of the music outside-- and back to Lena for long seconds.  Lena waits, focusing on the whiskey in her glass and the light reflecting off of it, giving Lucy her privacy to navigate the moment.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lucy says after a prolonged silence.  “Even if she did, she-- they just broke up.”

The door opens before Lena can find anything to say, much less say it at all, and Lucy smiles, short and sharp and pained, for a brief second before turning back to Alex with a grin painted across her face.  “Okay, Danvers, you’re three drinks in.  Time to spill.”

“What?”  Alex settles back in at Lucy’s side and claims the unopened bottle closest to her.  “Who ordered peaty shit?”

“Just because you’re too much of a heathen to appreciate it doesn’t mean it’s _shit_ ,” Lena says with a sniff, swiping the bottle from her and plopping the Dalmore in front of her instead.

“And you’re going to tell us what happened with Maggie.”  Lucy digs an elbow into her side gently.  “Because you still haven’t told Kara and if we don’t get it out of you she’s going to lose her damn mind and Lena and I are going to have to just assume Maggie cheated on you and go beat her up and Lena will break her hand on Maggie’s face and it’ll all be very terrible, so.  Spill.”

“I know how to throw a punch, you know,” Lena says, shoving at Lucy’s shoulder.  “But she’s right.  You should talk to us.  Because we’re your friends.”  She pours herself another glass of the Lagavulin and stands, sliding around the table until she can sit down at Alex’s other side.  Lucy wraps an arm around Alex’s shoulder and Lena mirrors the posture.

“Solidarity, Danvers,” Lucy says softly.  “We’ve got your back.”

Alex sucks in a deep breath, sinking back further into their arms, and Lena splits her attention between Alex’s focus on her own hands and Lucy’s focus on Alex.  

“It was about work,” Alex says slowly.  “She thinks we do more harm than good for the alien population.  It’s like she doesn’t get that we’re supposed to be protecting earth for _everyone_ , not just the aliens.”  She pulls in another wavering breath and shrinks further into Lucy’s side.  

“She said that she can’t be with me if we continue working the way we have, and I said I wasn’t going to quit because we do what we have to and-- that was that.  Unstoppable force, immovable object.”  Her teeth grind together, audible even over the echo of the music from outside, and her chin trembles.  “I shouldn’t have--did I fuck everything up for no reason?”

Her fingers wrap around each other, tugging and pulling and fidgeting until Lucy starts to reach for them, only to hesitate.  Lena glances up at Lucy and the tight set to her mouth, the way her fingers clench into a fist and then pull back and dig into her own thigh, and reaches out to wrap her hand carefully around Alex’s instead, settling them until Alex has stopped pulling at her own fingers and has slumped even further back into the booth.

Over Alex’s head, Lucy nods her thanks to Lena before blinking back into her usual self.  

“No,” she says cheerfully.  “That’s garbage, and you didn’t fuck anything up.  Maggie is cool and all, but if she doesn’t get it, then--”

“Then it wasn’t going to work out in the long term,” Lena says quietly.  “And I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah.”  Alex sucks in a shaky breath.  “Me too.”  Her voice cracks finally and when she starts to cry, it’s Lucy’s shoulder she turns into.  Lucy’s hand shake for a brief moment before her arms wrap more fully around Alex, her eyes wide and locked onto Lena’s.

 _It’s okay_ , Lena mouths, one hand resting against Alex’s back and the other curled around Lucy’s wrist gently.   _You’re going to be fine_.

Lucy nods and echoes it aloud, mumbling into Alex’s hair.  

 

* * *

 

They all wind up at Lena’s apartment, stumbling past the doorman and into the elevator at two in the morning.  Kara is waiting in the elevator when it opens and Lena and Lucy immediately hand Alex off to her; Alex slumps half-asleep in her arms with a grumble and no other commentary and Lena automatically tucks an arm around Lucy’s shoulders.

The four of them fall asleep in a pile on Lena’s bed, Alex sandwiched between Lena and Kara and Lucy dead asleep on Lena’s shoulder.


	5. Chapter 5

Lena’s phone rings insistently just as she’s stepping up to the security line at the airport.  It’s Kara, and she hesitates, thumb hovering over the screen, until a TSA agent snaps at her to keep moving.  She settles her phone in the tray with a sigh and hopes Kara won’t panic when Lena doesn’t answer, because Lena always answers when Kara calls her.

By the time she gets her phone back, following a prolonged search of her briefcase because the cranky old man at the scanner doesn’t believe she has a reason for three laptops, there are two other missed calls and four text messages from Kara.

“Hey,” Lena says as soon as Kara picks up.  “Are you okay?”

“Where _are_ you?” Kara says with a huff.  “You were gone when I got up!”

“I left you a note, you know,” Lena says, grumbling at her boot as she tries to balance the phone between her shoulder and ear and put her shoes back on.  “A detailed note, in fact.  Explaining that I had to get on an early flight last minute.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Kara says, and Lena closes her eyes and inhales slowly, because the hurt in Kara’s voice is heavy even over the phone.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a moment.  “This just-- it came up at the last minute and you know I never actually manage to leave if you ask me not to.  Especially if it involves me getting on a plane.”

“No fair,” Kara mumbles.  “I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry,” Lena says again, still sitting on the bench by security, one boot off.  “You’re right, I shouldn’t have-- I’ll wake you up next time.  I promise.”

“You’d better,” Kara says with a whine.  “I’m gonna tell Alex, she’ll yell at you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Lena says.  “She’ll make me do some martial arts thing with her and I’ll be limping for days.   _Again_.”

“Shoulda thought about that before you bailed on your girlfriend at five in the morning,” Kara says cheerfully.  “So, where are you going?”

“East coast,” Lena says vaguely.  “I already let Jess know I’m pushing my meetings from today, but can you tell Alex?  I’m supposed to review some things with her today and Jess is scared of her.”

“She’s not _scared_ of Alex,” Kara says.  “She just-- finds her very impressive.”

“I’m sure that’s all it is, and there’s nothing to do with the fact that Alex carries four guns at any given time.”

“What am I supposed to tell Alex?  That you just popped off to the other side of the country for--”

“You can tell her I didn’t tell you,” Lena says.  “I know you don’t want to lie to her.”

“Can’t you just tell me where you’re going?” Kara says softly.  “The last time you did this--”

“I’m not going to see her,” Lena says firmly.  “I have no interest in visiting my mother in prison ever again.  You know that.”

“You promise?” Kara says.  “Because it’s okay if you want to.  And I can meet you there, I can be there--”

“Kara,” Lena says, warm and quiet and very in love with Kara offering to fly across the country in open air on no notice.  “I’m not going to see my mother.  I promise.”

“Okay,” Kara mumbles.  

“But thank you,” Lena says.  “Really.”  

She finally puts her other shoe on and stands, pasting an insincere Luthor smile on her face for the man at the scanner who insisted her bag be searched.  They’re already calling boarding for her flight and she’s on the wrong side of the terminal.  “I’m sorry, but I’m running late because I got searched at security, so I have to actually run now.  I’ll text you when I land?”

“You’d better,” Kara says, pout back in full force.

“I love you,” Lena says.  “Talk to you later?”

“I love you, too, jerk,” Kara says.  “Have a safe flight.”

“Always do,” Lena says.  It’s been long enough that she can joke, now, about nearly dying in a fiery helicopter crash.  “Bye, babe.”  

The call ends with Kara echoing her goodbyes and Lena half-runs down the terminal, making it to the boarding gate just before they close.  She collapses into her seat with a sigh and has just enough time before take off to order a cup of coffee from a starstruck flight attendant.  She’s going to need the caffeine to make up for the lack of sleep, seeing as she woke up abruptly at 4:30 and decided to buy a ticket on the nine AM flight.  

She starts her second cup of coffee when they hit 10,000 feet and she can boot up her laptop.  It’s a five hour flight to DC and she’s got a full day’s work to get through before they land.

 

* * *

 

National City doesn’t get much in the way of winter weather, but Washington certainly does.  Lena grumbles into her scarf as she hurries out to where her driver is waiting at Reagan, cursing the cold and clutching tighter to the two coffees in her hands.

She slides into the car and yanks the door shut behind her with a sigh.  

“Ma’am, it’s good to see you again,” the driver says.  “Where to?”

“Henry, how often do I have to tell you not to call me ma’am?”  Lena unwinds her scarf, pausing long enough for his traditional smile and _“At least one more time, ma’am_ ,” before adding, “Fort McNair, please.”

“Yes ma’am.”  

It’s a short drive to the National War College, and Lena spends the time responding to texts from Jess, who’s frantic over her schedule, and Kara, who’s failing impressively at keeping Alex at bay, judging by the series of annoyed texts she has from Alex and is choosing to ignore for a while.

_Alex can tell i’m lying_

Lena rolls her eyes, because of course Alex can tell when Kara’s lying.   _Just be vague.  It’ll be fine_

_A least tell me where you are?_

_DC_ , she texts back after a long hesitation.  

_Why???_

Lena props her chin in her hand and stares past Henry’s head and towards the road ahead of them, weighing the options of coming clean to Kara.  Kara, her girlfriend, who’s also Alex’s sister.

_Long story.  I’ll tell you tonight?_

_Are you coming home tonight?_

_Tomorrow afternoon.  But i thought maybe you could come spend the evening with me if you wanted?_

A collection of smiling emojis pop up on her phone as Henry speaks to security at Fort McNair, and Lena takes a moment to respond to Alex’s annoyance-- _be nice to kara, i’ll call you tomorrow, calm down, and don’t yell at my assistant because i missed a meeting with you_ \-- before she tucks her phone back into her purse.  

The car is waved through after her driver’s license is inspected by the MPs at the gate and Lena taps her fingers against her knee as Henry drives them through the base.  When she’d booked the plane ticket, it had seemed like a good idea, flying out to see Lucy unannounced; now, surrounded by military officials on the other side of the country and fully out of her depth, she’s less certain.

“Ma’am?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll call you when I’m done,” Lena says with a tight smile.  

“Of course,” Henry says.  He opens her door for her smartly and helps her back into her coat, sending her on her way with his typical grandfatherly smile.  The buildings around her loom ominously and functional, sprawling in a way that nothing is in National City or Metropolis or any of the other cramped cities she’s always thrived in.  She pulls in a long breath and marches forward.

Lucy’s office door is open.  She’s in full military mode, cover sitting neatly on one corner of her desk and blouse impeccable, ribbons meticulous, spine at attention even as she sits at her desk grimacing at the stack of papers she’s reading.

“Knock knock,” Lena says, leaning against the doorway.  Lucy looks up and blinks rapidly, military posture vanishing as she scrambles from behind her desk and slams into Lena for a hug, nearly spilling both coffees.

“What are you doing here?” She manhandles Lena into the office and shuts the door.  “You didn’t tell me you were coming!  I’m coming in like a week!”

“Coffee break, obviously,” Lena says, offering her a coffee cup.  She shrugs out of her coat for Lucy to hang on the rack behind the door.  “And it had been a while--”

“It’s been ten days, you unbelievable sap.”

“--so...hi?  Want some coffee?”

“‘Hi,’ she says,” Lucy says drily.  “Like she didn’t just appear in my office three thousand miles from home with airport coffee.”

“The tarmac fumes give it a particular bite, I’ve found,” Lena says.  “And what can I say?  I like to maintain an aura of mystery.”

“I’ve seen you crying over Pixar movies in kitten pajamas at three in the morning.”  Lucy drops back into her chair and rolls her eyes.  “There’s no mystery left, Luthor.”

“I surprised you, didn’t I?”

“Moving on,” Lucy says over her.  “What _are_ you doing here?  How long are you here?  Did Kara and Alex come with you?”

“I’m heading back tomorrow,” Lena says.  “And no, I left the illustrious Danvers sisters at home, because I’m here to hang out with my best friend, who’s been living three thousand miles from home for almost a year now, because I miss her.  What do you say?”

“How did you manage to show up the only day this week I don’t have meetings all afternoon?”  Lucy shuts down her computer and shoves a stack of files into her bag.  Lena hums noncommittally and picks at one of her fingernails, and Lucy pauses and glares across the desk at her. “You hacked my computer, didn’t you?”

Lena raises one eyebrow and shrugs delicately.  “Would I do that?”

“Lena!” Lucy hisses.  “I’m not with the DEO right now, the DOD is--”

“Desperately in need of updating some of its security protocols,” Lena says.  “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Hypothetically, she says,” Lucy grumbles.  “If you get arrested I’m _not_ going to be your lawyer.”

“We’ll see.”  Lena slides out the door after Lucy.  “I vote room service at my hotel.  What do you say?”

Lucy’s back straightens as they make their way down the hall, her shoulders easy and square under her uniform as they stroll past other faculty and staff, some in uniform who snap out of her way and salute and some who she salutes.  Lena’s never spent much time with Lucy in uniform, her time at the DEO always framed in the standard black tactical gear and the less formal command structure.  It’s different, the way Lucy seems taller under the weight of the medals on her chest and the stripes on her sleeves, how her presence overwhelms Lena’s in a way it never has before.  

“I can cook,” Lucy offers.  “And I do have a guest room.”

“Since when do you cook?”  Lena holds the door open and follows Lucy out of the building, burrowing back into her coat in a particularly undignified manner and waving over towards Henry and the car.  

“Since all my friends are on the west coast and I’m stuck here alone,” Lucy says.  “You realize it’s not that cold, right?”

“Be quiet,” Lena mumbles.  She slides into the heated backseat with a sigh.  “I’m not made for cold weather.  And your guest room is great but my hotel has a jacuzzi and a masseuse.”

“Fine, we’ll go to your swanky hotel.”  Lucy rolls her eyes and shoves at Lena’s shoulder until she scoots over to make room in the backseat.  “Tell me, Luthor, how’s my baby doing?”

“Will you _please_ stop calling it that?”

“Spill!”

Lena glowers from her side of the car and rolls her eyes.  “Your tax deferral strategy is continuing as planned and running smoothly.”  She sighs when Lucy smirks and cheers.  “Your replacement wants to change it.”

“My replacement might have an unfortunate meeting with a bus,” Lucy says, no longer cheering.  “I spent almost two years building it out.  Don’t let her touch it.”

“Believe it or not, you no longer actually work at my company,” Lena says, poking delicately at Lucy’s shoulder.  “What I do with my tax department--”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Lucy says threateningly.  “Don’t even think about it.”

“You know, I didn’t actually come here to discuss corporate strategy with you,” Lena says.

“Then why _are_ you really here?”

“To see you,” Lena says again.  Lucy raises an eyebrow at her, and it carries more weight with her uniform and the building she’d just been in than it normally would have, enough to make Lena cave with a sigh.  “I want to talk to you about Alex.”

“What?  What happened?”  Lucy’s entire body tightens visibly, muscles coiling under her uniform against some impending impact.

“She’s fine,” Lena says quietly, a hand on Lucy’s arm until she relaxes..  “Everyone is fine.  That’s not what I meant.”

Lucy pulls in a long breath and leans back into the car seat.  “Not cool, Lena.”

“You’re in love with her,” Lena says, blunt and too loud for the quiet of the car.  Lucy tenses again, her eyes shooting towards the divider between the backseat and where Henry sits in the front.  “He can’t hear us,” Lena adds quietly.  “It’s just you and me here, so just--talk to me, will you?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Lucy says shortly.  

“Lucy,” Lena says, chest heavy under the weight of uncertainty in Lucy’s eyes, the way she’d looked so desperately to Lena for support when they’d been holding Alex together after she and Maggie broke up, the slump to her spine and the way her hands clutch together in her lap and jaw clenches even tighter.  “It’s just me in here.”

“About what?” Lucy pulls at her tie and unbuttons her collar, dropping her elbows onto her knees and her chin into her hands.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Lucy,” Lena says again.  She tries to put as much into it as she can, to keep Lucy talking, to say _please talk to me_ without putting the plea out there again.  “You know she’s not still hung up on Maggie, right?  It's been ages.”

“Doesn’t mean she’s interested in me, though,” Lucy says, looking up with a smile that doesn’t convey much beyond resignation, and Lena sighs and scoots across the backseat of the car to wrap an arm around her shoulders. Lucy leans into her side with a shuddering breath and Lena holds on tight for the rest of the ride.

She sends a text off to Kara as they approach the hotel and Lucy still hasn’t said anything.  

_Rain check for tonight.  Sorry, babe._

 

* * *

 

_What’re you doing tonight_

Kara nearly drops her phone from twenty thousand feet, followed by nearly crushing it when she catches it to read Alex’s text message.  She zooms down towards the closet landing spot and unlocks it.

_I dunno.  Why?_

_Nevermind_

Kara wrinkles her nose at her phone and Alex’s reply.  

_You get pasta, I'll get chinese_

She tucks her phone back away and leaps from the roof, heading home.  She tidies her apartment at superspeed and has time to shower and order an unreasonable amount of Chinese food before Alex arrives.

“You were supposed to bring pasta!  Where’s my alfredo?” Kara says, taking the bags of Indian food from Alex’s hands.  She’s distributed it on the coffee table and made it back to the door before Alex has her jacket off.

“Wasn’t in the mood,” Alex says, shrugging past Kara and making a beeline for the couch.  She drops down onto it with a groan.

“What’s up with you?”  Kara nudges at Alex’s feet, clearing her throat until Alex finally sits up to take her boots off.

“Some uppity new agent got particularly uppity in training today,” Alex says with a grunt.  “Thought that he should be sparring with Supergirl instead of some paltry human _girl_.  Pulled a cheap shot.”  She pulls her sweater up delicately to expose a bruise painted along her ribcage.

“What the-- are you okay?”  Kara yanks her glasses off, squinting through Alex’s skin to see the ribs intact.  “What the hell--”

“J’onn already ripped him to pieces.”  Alex drops her sweater back down and eases back onto the couch.  “And I got to pick his punishment.”

“Oh, tell me you didn’t--”

“He’s going to be transcribing a thousand pages of handwritten satellite logs from 1972 until he goes blind,” Alex says, clearly pleased with herself.  She reaches towards the container with the lamb vindaloo and whines until Kara hands it to her.  “Talk shit, get hit, blah blah blah.”

“Well, he deserved it,” Kara says with a sigh.  She helps herself to the chicken korma and speeds through half of it, apparently hungrier than she thought she was.  “Okay, so, what’s the plan?  TV or movie?”

“You got to pick last time, _and_ I’m wounded,” Alex says. She pops an enormous amount of food into her mouth and immediately winces at the heat, fanning at her mouth until Kara rolls her eyes and heads to the kitchen.  

“I swear to God if you suggest a horror movie I will throw you out that window.”

“Ruin my fun, why don’t you,” Alex grumbles.  “Fine.  Pick your romcom, nerd.”   She flicks through text messages on her phone, pausing on the last one she got from Lena.

_I’m on a business trip.  Calm down._

“Where’s Lena?” Alex calls into the kitchen, head lolling over just in time to see Kara nearly drop the bottle of beer she’d just pulled from the fridge, superspeed the only thing that stops it from shattering on the floor.

“What?  Who?”

“About my height, dark hair, boatloads of cash, you tend to follow her around with a starstuck puppylove face all day every day?”

“Oh, Lena,” Kara says.  She laughs, loud and harsh and tinged with nerves  like she did in high school when she ate all of Alex’s birthday cake before her party.  “You meant Lena.  My girlfriend.”

“Kara,” Alex says with a sigh.  “Just tell me what’s going on, will you?”

“I don’t know,” Kara says, shoulders dropping.  “She left super early this morning for this trip--”

“Where’d she go?”

“Nowhere?” It comes out strangled and tight, and Alex raise one eyebrow imperiously and Kara folds.  “DC?”

“She went to DC?”  Alex blinks slowly, glancing back down at her phone.  “Why is that some big secret?  She goes there all the time.” The _with Lucy_ goes unspoken, and Alex’s teeth grind together against the effort to not call Lucy to find out why they’re hanging out secretly.

“I don’t know,” Kara says truthfully.  “She didn’t go into details.”

“Kara,” Alex says, slow and careful. “Are you sure she’s in DC?”

“She’s not visiting Lillian.”  Kara shakes her head firmly.  “I asked, that’s what I thought, too.  But she promised she’s not.  And she wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Okay,” Alex says.  She takes a deep breath and winces when it pushes at her bruised ribs.  “When is she back?  She owes me drinks for being all weird and mysterious.”

“Tomorrow,” Kara says with a pout.

“How tragic that you have to spend a night without your girlfriend,” Alex says drily.  There’s a knock on the door, and Kara pauses long enough to stick her tongue out at Alex before retrieving the Chinese food.  

“Can we go do something?” Kara says after annihilating half of the food.  “I want to go out and do stuff.”

“Fine,” Alex says with a sigh.  “But if I demand to be carried at some point--”

“Then I will carry you all the way home,” Kara promises.  She hops to her feet and speeds through shoving Alex’s boots onto her feet for her so she can pull Alex up to her feet as well and drag her out of the apartment.   

 

* * *

 

“So,” Lena says, wiggling her shoulders against the side of the jacuzzi until the jets hit her square between the shoulderblades and sighing.  It’s nearly midnight and she yawns, pushes a foot through the water until she can shove at Lucy’s knee. “Talk to me about Alex.”

Lucy groans and slumps further down into the water.  “Why?” she mumbles, barely audible over the sound of the bubbles.

“Because she’s your best friend, and you’re in love with her,” Lena says, one eyebrow arching upwards.  

“You’re my best friend,” Lucy says.

“Semantics,” Lena says with an eyeroll.  “I’m very much spoken for.  But you’re not in love with _me_ , you’re in love with Alex.”

“Seriously, can you stop saying that?”

“Lucy,” Lena says firmly.  “You have to deal with this.”

“There’s nothing to deal with,” Lucy says.  

“Your position at the war college terms in two months,” Lena says, pointing sharply at Lucy.  “At which point you’d better be moving back home because you did your time in DC for your career and you hate this place.  Which means you’re going to be around us all, constantly.  Including Alex.  Who you’re in love with.”

Lucy groans and slips down under the water, disappearing under the bubbles, and Lena watches patiently until she resurfaces.  

“So how are you going to deal with that?”

“Denial seems like a great plan,” Lucy says with a shrug.  She hikes herself up over the edge of the tub so she can reach the bottle of wine on the bathroom counter.  

“You can’t just pretend like this isn’t happening.”  

Lucy swallows a mouthful of wine from the bottle and hands it over to Lena.  “I don’t see why not.  It’s worked for this long.”

“How long, exactly?” Lena offers the bottle back.

“Are we really doing this?” Lucy says with a huff.  

“We certainly are,” Lena says, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at Lucy.  It doesn’t technically carry much weight, given that they’re in an enormous jacuzzi and vaguely tipsy, but it works anyways.

“Fine,” Lucy mumbles.  “Since your dumb ass wound up in the emergency room, more or less.  Thank for that, by the way, I aged thirty years that day.”

“That long?”  Lena reclaims the bottle for another sip.  “And you can’t blame this on me, you know.  I didn’t make you fall for her.”

“No, you just made me all panicky and vulnerable and then she was there to hold me together,” Lucy says with a glare.  “And _then_ I fell for her.  Jerk.”

“What, I have one minor bout of appendicitis and you fall in love with Alex?”

“It’s not my fault she’s hot and smart and, like, the most charming asshole ever when she wants to be,” Lucy grumbles.  “Or that she’s the first damn person I always want to talk to about basically everything.”  She slumps down until her chin is dipping into the water.  “You know that thing she does when any of us is upset?  Where she’s just _there_ and she doesn’t let go until you do first?”

“Yeah,” Lena says softly.  “I know what you mean.”  She sets the bottle aside.  “You never really had a chance, did you?”

“Not even a little bit,” Lucy says, shrugging and smiling the way she did over a year ago when she walked into Lena’s hospital room with dark circles under her eyes and a slump to her shoulders, tight and thin.  She sighs and drops her head back, staring up at the ceiling.  “It was easier.  With Maggie.”

“What?”

Lucy drags her chin back down so she can face Lena and shrugs.  “It was easier when she was with Maggie.”

“That seems counterintuitive,” Lena says slowly.  

“They were good together,” Lucy says, one shoulder lifting again, just enough to rise past the waterline before slipping back under.  “She was happy, and that was good, and obviously nothing was ever even remotely possible if she was with Maggie.  So it was easy to just...put it away.  Because it didn’t matter.”

“Of course it mattered,” Lena says indignantly.  “Why wouldn’t it matter?  It’s how you feel.”

“That’s not what I--” Lucy slumps back down even further, half of her head disappearing underwater.  She pops back up after a moment and shakes her head, flinging water from her hair.  “It didn’t matter how I felt about her because there was no chance.  It was just there in the background.  Didn’t matter because it wasn’t a remotely tangible option, so I could ignore it.”

“But then she and Maggie broke up,” Lena says, nodding along slowly.  She lets out a slow breath, sympathy pushing her shoulders towards Lucy and familiarity holding her back, stilling her hands from holding onto Lucy as she processes the way she would Kara.  Lucy always did want to hold herself up.  “So how are you going to deal with it now?”

“Now?” Lucy scoffs, though her bravado misses the mark.  “Nothing.  Like I said, just because she’s single doesn’t mean she’s interested in me.”

“How do you know?”  Lena says delicately.

“What?”

“How do you know she’s not interested in you?” Lena says more clearly.  “You’re her best friend.  She’s flown out here almost once a month to see you since you moved.”

“Because we’re friends,” Lucy says flatly.  “You _also_ fly out here to see me all the time.  So does Kara.  Because you’re my friends.”

“Right,” Lena says.  “Definitely.”  She cranes back to grab a towel and hoists herself out of the jacuzzi.  The towel is enormous and fluffy and she wraps it around her shoulders, burrowing down into it.

“What?” Lucy follows her, grabbing her own towel.  It wraps fully around her twice and Lena bites back a laugh at how much smaller than usual Lucy looks, out of uniform and sopping wet and fully ensconced in an oversized hotel towel.

“Nothing,” Lena says, wringing her hair out and disappearing out of the bathroom.

“Lena Luthor,” Lucy says sharply, trailing after her and doing her best to look intimidating.  The edges of the towel trailing after her undermine her authority, even with her arms folded over her chest and full military glare in use.

“What?” Lena doesn’t look up from her phone, which has sixteen text messages from Kara over the last three hours, half of them regarding work and the other half about Alex, who’s been hounding her with questions all day.  “Kara wants to know when you’re visiting.  Do you have tickets?”

Lucy rolls her eyes and disappears into the bathroom, returning in a robe that’s equally oversized on her small frame, and tosses a second robe to Lena.  “I emailed her my tickets two weeks ago.  Just like I emailed _all_ of you my tickets two weeks ago.”

“Just checking,” Lena says mildly.  Her phone and Lucy’s both beep at the same time, the group text they have with Alex and Kara producing a picture of the two of them, a selfie from a mini golf course.  She pulls at Lucy’s shoulder until she can snap a picture of the both of them to send back.

“Oh, God,” Lucy mutters, rolling her eyes at Lena.  “Stop making that stupid lovestruck face at your phone.  It’s embarrassing.”

“Shut up,” Lena says, even as she hurriedly locks her phone.  “Am not.”

“Shouldn’t you be past the honeymoon period at this point?”

“Shouldn’t we be talking about how you feel about _your_ Danvers sister?”

Lucy groans and flops onto the enormous bed.  Lena sighs and settles down next to her, handing her a bottle of water from the mini fridge.  A tug on the sleeve of her robe, followed by a petulant whine from Lucy, has her laying down the rest of the way, staring at the ceiling in tandem with Lucy.

“You know what you said earlier,” Lena says eventually, carefully not looking at Lucy.  “About how Alex is the person you want to talk to first about things.”

Lucy grunts, flapping one hand lazily in Lena’s direction.

“Alex is getting published again,” Lena says.  

“I know,” Lucy says, elbowing her in the side.  

“She told you about it first,” Lena says softly.  She rolls over onto her side and props her head on one arm.  “Before me, before Kara, before J’onn or Eliza.  She called you when she found out.”

“You don’t know that,” Lucy says, jaw tight.  

“I do, actually,” Lena says.  “Because after she told me, you texted me.  And Kara was with me, and she didn’t know yet.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Lucy says.  “One time--”

“She called you when she and Maggie broke up,” Lena goes on.  “She told you when she decided she wanted to publish that paper.  She told you when it went through peer review.”  She pokes at Lucy’s side, and again, and again, until Lucy squirms away and rolls over onto her side as well.  “She calls you before she calls everyone else, Luce.  You’re first.”

Lucy picks at a thread on her cuff.  “It could ruin things,” she says after a long moment.  

“It didn’t ruin anything when Kara and I started dating.”

“It’s not the same,” Lucy says, voice small and fingers fidgeting sporadically.  

“Maybe not.”  Lena reaches out to still Lucy’s hands.  “But maybe it is.”  She holds on tight, waiting until Lucy’s ready to look up at her.  “Don’t you think it’s worth finding out?”

Lucy groans and flops down onto her stomach and yells into the comforter. “You sound like a goddamned Hallmark card.”

 

* * *

 

Kara’s trots easily up the stairs to Alex’s apartment, Alex grumbling from her piggyback position.

“Stop jostling me, you jerk.”

“You could just walk, you know,” Kara says, not at all out of breath.

“We had a deal,” Alex grumbles.  “You made me go do things.  Around people.  So you have to carry me home.”  

“So dramatic,” Kara says with a huff as she pulls up to as top in front of Alex’s door and drops her.  “Do you have any ice cream?”

Alex rolls her eyes and waves Kara into the apartment, tossing her keys aside and shutting the door behind her.  “You really have to ask?”

Both of their phones beep at the same time.  Alex lowers herself down onto the couch with a grunt, one hand pressed to her ribs, and digs her phone out of her jacket pocket.  It’s a text to the group message, Lena and Lucy  smiling wide for the camera, hair wet and cheeks scrubbed red and fluffy bathrobes far too big for either of them.  The flush to their skin and the oversized robes make them both look younger, so much younger, and a twisting pain that has nothing to do with her bruised ribs kicks around Alex’s abdomen.

“Oh, hey, is that that the group text?” Kara plops down next to her, two pints of ice cream in hand and neck craning over to inspect the picture Alex still has open.  A sigh escapes her lips at the sight of Lena.

“You’re such a sap,” Alex says.  She pauses before closing out of the picture, biting down on the inside of her cheek and looking again at Lucy and her smirk and the sharp line of her jaw.  She clears her throat too loudly and sets her phone down, reaching instead for one of the cartons of ice cream.

“What’s up with you?” Kara says around a mouthful of cookie dough.

“Nothing,” Alex says, shoving a spoonful of chocolate into her mouth.

“Your pulse just did the thing.”  Kara flutters her fingers rapidly to demonstrate, and Alex glares when the movement matches perfectly to the rhythm of her pulse.

“You’re not supposed to creep on my heartrate and you know it.”  

“I’m not creeping, I’m being a concerned sister,” Kara says, discarding the ice cream and taking Alex’s out of her hands to set on the table.  Alex lets out an offended grumble and chases after it with her spoon, only for Kara to take that as well.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Alex mumbles.  “Can I--”

“No ice cream until you tell me what’s wrong,” Kara says sharply.

“It’s dumb,” Alex says with a sigh.  “I just miss when we were all here, you know?  It doesn’t feel the same with Lucy in DC.”

“She’s going to come back soon,” Kara says, curling an arm around her shoulders and tugging until Alex leans into her side.  “But I miss her, too.”

“It’s just weird,” Alex says.  “We had this little unit, all of us.  And now Lucy’s in DC and Maggie--” She cuts herself off with a sharp inhale.

“It’s okay to miss Maggie, too,” Kara says softly.

“It’s not that,” Alex says.  “I mean-- not really.  I do miss Maggie, but not as much now.  I miss what we used to be, I think.  I didn’t really know what it was like, feeling that secure, not before Maggie.”

“You miss having a girlfriend,” Kara paraphrases, and Alex groans.

“It sounds so stupid when you put it that way,” she mutters.  “I went for almost my entire life without one, why should I--”

“Alex,” Kara says, flicking at her ear.  Alex shakes her head and slaps Kara’s hand away with an annoyed whine.  “You’re allowed to miss being in a relationship and having someone to wake up to every morning.  There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Maybe.”

“You know what you should do.”  Kara pokes at her arm.  “You should go on a date.”

“I hate dates.”

“Yeah, but how else are you going to find a girlfriend?” Kara counters.  “Gotta get back on the horse, try again, whatever it is they call it.”

“No dating,” Alex says and yawns, slumping further into the couch.  “Just sleeping.”

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Kara warns.  Alex hums sleepily and yawns again.  “I’ll carry you over there if I have to.”

“Will not,” Alex mumbles.  

Kara huffs out a sigh and stands, sweeping Alex up like a child in spite of her yell of protest.  “I warned you,” she says, striding over to the bed and dumping Alex just shy of gently onto it.  “Go to sleep.”

She wakes up halfway through the night, Kara sprawled next to her and taking up the majority of the bed, and stares at the shadows on the ceiling for long minutes, still thinking back to the cut of Lucy’s jaw and the precise angle that forms her familiar smirk.


	6. Chapter 6

Lucy’s last day at the war college is in the middle of May.  She has a plane ticket for a week later, one way to National City, and movers set up to cart her belongings across the country in her wake.

On her last day, she’s already packed up her entire apartment in DC.  She walks into the rooms full of boxes and discards her briefcase onto one stack with a sigh.  She’d planned to give herself a week to pack after finishing, but she started a month early and was ready three days before her position termed.  

She sucks in a deep breath and turns in a slow circle.  Her entire life is packed up, once again, and she still has six more days before she’s going home.

“Fuck,” she mumbles, rubbing at her forehead.  She digs her phone out and dials before she can think about it.

“Hey,” Lena says on the fourth ring.  The tick of a keyboard continues on in the background, the sound comfortable and familiar after the number of business meetings Lucy had been in with Lena.  “You all done?”

“Officially free and clear,” Lucy says, unbuttoning her jacket and shrugging out of it.  “All set to come back and terrorize J’onn until the end of time.”

“I’m sure he’s ecstatic,” Lena says.  “What’s up?”

“Can I--” Lucy starts, pauses, takes a deep breath.  “I have a favor to ask.”

“Sure,” Lena says immediately.  The typing stops and Lucy yanks at her tie and top button to take another deep breath.  “What do you need?”

“Does the DC office still have a corporate plane?”

“Yes,” Lena says slowly.  “You know it does.”  

Lucy can all but see her, chin propped in her hand, and she counts the seconds on her inhale and waits, hoping for Lena to figure it out so she doesn’t have to ask.

“I’ll tell Henry to come pick you up in,” Lena says after a moment.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Lucy says quickly, rolling her eyes up towards the ceiling and letting out a loud breath.  “I just-- I really don’t want to spend any more time at this apartment if I don’t have to.”

“It’s going to ruin the welcome home surprise party plans,” Lena says, a smile in her voice.  “But it’ll be worth it.  We can pick you up at the airport.”

“No, that’s-- you don’t have to do that,” Lucy rushes out.  “But-- do you know what Alex is doing tonight?”

“Technically it’s sister night,” Lena says slowly.

“Oh,” Lucy mutters.  “Never--” The line goes dead and she frowns down at her phone, only to nearly drop it when a video call from Lena pops up.  “Uh, hey?”

Lena raises an eyebrow at her, the way she does in contract negotiations, and Lucy huffs out a sigh.

“Don’t give me that look.”

“I will absolutely give you this look,” Lena says, other eyebrow arching up as well.  “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lucy says breezily.  She yanks the bobby pins out of her hair and dumps them onto the empty countertop.    

“Lucy,” Lena says, sharp and unyielding, and Lucy flashes a too-wide grin at her.  Lena glares at her through the camera and, three thousand miles away, Lucy wilts under it after a long moment.  

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Lucy mumbles.  She slumps against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor next to a stack of boxes.  “Maybe nothing at all by the time I actually land.”

“It’s a start,” Lena says, softening and smiling at her.  “I’m proud of you.”

“Ugh,” Lucy says with a groan.  “Sap.”  She drops her head back against the wall behind her.  “Can you--”

“I’ll appropriate Kara for the evening,” Lena says.  “Don’t worry about that.”

“Oh, good, I can just worry about everything else instead.  Like potentially ruining my relationship with my best friend.”

“You aren’t going to ruin anything,” Lena says sternly.  “You _won’t_.”

“Sure, easy for you to say.”  Lucy glares into the phone at Lena’s irritating calm.  “You didn’t have to do this, we did it _for_ you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lena says, rolling her eyes.  “Get off the floor and pack.  Henry will pick you up in twenty.”

“You’re a doll.”  Lucy winks at the phone.  “Really.  Thanks.”

“What’s the point of all this money if I don’t use it for a good cause?” Lena says with a shrug.  “Getting you two to finally get your shit together is a _great_ cause.”

“I’m hanging up on you now, jerk,” Lucy says, blowing a kiss at her.  Lena salutes her sharply through the phone and ends the call, leaving Lucy to throw clothes into her last empty suitcase.

In National City, Lena sits back at her desk with a sigh.  

“Hey, Jess?”

Jess pops into the office as always, notepad in hand.  

“Can you Rachel in DC and tell her to prep the plane.  Lieutenant Colonel Lane is flying in.  And please reschedule my afternoon, I need to handle something downtown.”

“Of course,” Jess says.  She pauses in her notes and looks back up.  “Is Miss-- I mean, Lieutenant Colonel Lane returning to tax?”  

“No,” Lena says, barking out a short laugh and gathering her purse.  Lucy had excelled in her undercover position in the tax department, but had hated the corporate world almost as much as she’d enjoyed tormenting Jess.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jess says, snapping her notepad shut sharply and following Lena out of the office.

In the car, Lena calls Kara and is answered with the whooshing of air that means Kara’s flying somewhere above the city.

“Hey,” Kara says cheerfully. “What’s up?”

“I know you and Alex have plans tonight, but could you possibly reschedule?”  Lena picks at the corner of one nail as she lies smoothly.  “I need to borrow you to see if you can break some of the tech we’re working on and the project lead had to push a trip to Tokyo up to tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Kara says.  The wind noise quiets.  “Sure, I guess?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.” Lena chooses her words carefully, lying as little as possible.

“Okay,” Kara says after a moment, a smile in her voice.  “I’ll let her know.  But if she gets cranky, I’m sending her your way.”

“Coward,” Lena says even as she smiles.  “Thanks, babe.  I’ll come by after work?”

“After work by your standards or normal standards?”

“I refuse to dignify that with a response,” Lena says loftily.  “How about seven?”

“Seven,” Kara confirms.  “Bye, babe!”

The call ends with a click just as the car pulls up to the nondescript skyscraper that the DEO base is housed in.  Lena whisks into the base with a flash of her badge and strides over to Winn’s desk.

“Oh, hey.”  He doesn’t look up from his tablet.  “Kara just left, she’s heading back to Catco.”

“I’m here for you, actually,” Lena says, clearing her throat firmly and waiting for him to look up.  

“Huh?”

“What weird tech have you been tinkering with in your mad scientist workshop?”

Winn gapes at her for a split second before recovering.  “I don’t have a-- I don’t _tinker_.”

Lena folds her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow, counting off seconds before Winn caves and starts babbling about some cloaking technology or another.  

“That’s what I thought,” she says.  “Can you send it all over to my office this afternoon? I need it.”

“What--all of it?  That’s like--”

Lena arches her eyebrow a millimeter higher and Winn’s voice trails off into a squeak.  “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbles.  “I _hate_ it when you go all scary business lady on me and you know it.”

“Jess will be there to accept the delivery,” Lena says, phone already in her hand and thumbs skating over the keyboard to text her assistant.  “I need it by 6:45 and you need to be gone by seven.  And don’t tell anyone.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait, hold on there,” Winn says.  “There is some seriously sensitive stuff there, and it’s complicated and there’s no instructions except what’s right up in here.”  He taps at his temple and folds his arms over his chest.  

“6:30,” Lena amends.  “And you will be gone when I get there.  I can figure things out from there, and if I have to sic Lucy on you when she gets back, I will.”

“Alright, alright, alright,” Winn mumbles.  “Bully.”

“Would it make you feel better if I put that on my business cards?” Lena says over her shoulder, heading towards Alex’s lab.

“It might!” he shouts after her.

“Why’s Winn yelling at you?” Alex doesn’t look up when Lena sits down in the one spare chairs Alex keeps in the lab.  

“Does he ever actually need a reason?”  Lena settles delicately back in her chair.  “I’m stealing your sister for the evening tonight.”

That’s enough to get Alex to look up from her microscope, squinting and blinking at Lena.  “Hey, no fair, you got her last night.”

“What are we, eight?” Lena rolls her eyes.  “You can have her tomorrow night _and_ Sunday for Game of Thrones.”

“Are we signing a custody agreement or something?”

“I need her to test out some tech before the project lead flies out tomorrow.  He has a family emergency--” The lie falls easily from her lips, hitching only momentarily on a flicker of guilt.  “--and if she takes a dry run at them tonight he can work on a remediation plan on the plane tomorrow.”

“What tech?”  Alex pushes back from her workbench and leans backwards, stretching out the curve in her spine.  “I thought you moved all of your Supergirl R&D to Winn’s team.”

“Just a few odds and ends,” Lena says vaguely.  “Come on, Alex, it’s one sister night.  Because your best friend is asking.”

“Cheater,’ Alex mumbles.  “Fine, leave me all alone to fend for myself tonight.  See if I care.”

“Drama queen,” Lena says with a wave of her hand.  “I’ll buy you something shiny to make up for it, if you’d like.”

Alex shrugs and flops down to sit next to her, kicking out momentarily at Lena’s ankle, the movement habitual and easily dodged.   She drops her head back and rolls it over to look at Lena sideways.  “What are we doing when Lucy gets back?”

“What?”

“It’s Lucy,” Alex says, swirling her hands around in the air ineffectually.  “Tiny human, big personality, generally requires large welcome home parties.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t expect a _party_ ,” Lena says.

“She wanted a party when she got back from Metropolis for Thanksgiving and that was barely three days,” Alex points out.  

“Fair point,” Lena mutters.  “I can put something together, I suppose.”

“Hey.”  Alex kicks out at her ankle again.  “I can help, you know.  She’s my best friend, too.”

“Right,” Lena rushes out.  “Of course.  “I have a whole rotation of venue and catering options on file at the office, I can get Jess to email you--”

“Are we planning a black tie affair?” Alex asks, then pauses.  “Actually, do that.  She’ll hate it.  It’ll be great.”

“You’re a terrible person,” Lena says, even as she smiles.  “But okay.  I can do that.”

“Great.”  Alex claps her hands together and pushes back up to her feet.  “Now get out of my lab, I have work to do.”

“I love you too,” Lena says, shoving gently at Alex’s shoulder.  

Alex rolls her eyes and marches her towards the door.  “Still in the doghouse for stealing my sister, Luthor.”

“And yet you still love me,” Lena says over her shoulder just before Alex shuts her out of the lab.  The glass door doesn’t hide Alex’s grin.

 

* * *

 

Lucy’s plane lands in National City just after sunset.  She’s spent the entire flight abusing the pantry full of snacks and it’s even odds as to if the ache in her stomach is because of nerves or the entire bag of Cheetos she ate.

“Right,” she mutters, standing stock still in the middle of the airplane.  The pilot glances back at her.  

“Ma’am?  Do you need help?”

“No,” Lucy says, too loud and too fast, wincing.  “Sorry, I just-- long day.  I’ll just be a minute.”

She sucks in a slow breath and tugs on her shirt, checks the buttons on her cuffs, the battery life on her phone.  She has text messages from Lena ( _Kara appropriated_ and _Break a leg_ followed by a heart) and Alex ( _Lena stole my sister AGAIN_ and _How was your last day?_ and at least three iterations of _stop ignoring me, jerk_ ) filling up her lockscreen.  Long seconds slide by before she can bring herself to shoulder her duffel and stride off of the plane.  

Lena’s National City Henry, who’s actually named Simone and who Lucy always got along well with while undercover, is waiting on the tarmac with the car.  She holds out a hand for Lucy’s bag and glares when Lucy moves to put it in the trunk herself.

“Yes ma’am,” Lucy mumbles, handing it over.  “Bossy.”

“If you actually worked for L Corp again then _you_ could be bossy,” Simone says with a smirk.  “Until then, Ms. Luthor’s given me full latitude to treat uppity passengers as I see fit.”

“I’ll show you uppity,” Lucy says with a glare of her own.  She sniffs and turns in an about-face, beating Simone to opening the door to the backseat and flinging herself inside.

“So dramatic,” Simone says mildly, settling at the wheel.  “So where to?”

Lucy’s smirk fades away and her breath catches somewhere behind her sternum.  She glances down at her phone and inhales slowly, exhales, rattles off Alex’s address before she can stop herself.

_This is a terrible idea_

Lena responds almost immediately: _if it goes badly you can make me go boxing with you every saturday for the next six months._

Lucy raises an eyebrow at her phone.   _Lofty promises, Luthor_

 _Just confident_ and then a picture of Lena, stern and glaring, pops up.   _Don’t chicken out_

Lucy pulls in another deep breath and lets it out and bangs on the back of Simone’s seat.  “Okay, I need a distraction,” she says.  “Start talking about everything I’ve missed and don’t stop til we get there.”

Simone, ever a saint, does exactly that.

 

* * *

 

_I can’t do this_

Lucy stares at the door to Alex’s apartment, pacing back towards the stairs and then back over to the door.

_You can_

_You’re going to be okay_

_You’ve done way scarier things than this_

Lucy glares at her phone and contemplates calling Lena just to yell at her audibly about how much more terrifying this is than getting shot at.

_If you don’t knock in the next ten seconds i’m going to text her and tell her you’re standing at her door_

_I HATE YOU_

It’s enough, though, for Lucy to shove her phone into her pocket, count to three, and rap on Alex’s door.  She yanks her hand back and behind her back, standing unconsciously at parade rest with her bag at her feet, and waits.

The door opens and Alex gapes at her for the briefest moment before yanking her into a hug.  Lucy half-trips over her bag and lands squarely in Alex’s doorway, wrapped up in her arms and smell, faintly spicy and everything that feels like home, and buries her face into Alex’s shoulders, inhales deeply, holds on tight.

“What are you doing here?” Alex mutters into the side of her head.  “I thought you were coming next week.”

“Surprise?” Lucy says into her shoulder, pulling in another deep breath. “Just couldn’t stay away, I guess.”  She pulls back, finally, and exhales sharply.  

“Is that why you weren’t responding all afternoon?”  Alex leans closer, sniffing at Lucy’s shoulder, and Lucy’s teeth grind together.  “And why do you smell like cheetos?”

“Don’t judge me snacking habits, Danvers.”  Lucy rolls her eyes and reaches back into the hallway to gather her bag.  “And yes, obviously.  Duh.  As if I could ever ignore you.”

“Do Lena and Kara know you’re here?”  Alex digs her phone out of her pocket. “They’re going to be so cranky, we all were going to pick you up at the airport.”

“Lena knows,” Lucy says hurriedly.  “I may have absconded with an L Corp plane.”

“You didn’t.”  Alex takes the bag from Lucy, settling it over by the kitchen island.  

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Lucy says, turning in a slow circle in the middle of the living room.  “I missed this place.”

“You were here three weeks ago,” Alex says.

“It’s not the same,” Lucy says with a shrug.  “That was visiting. I get to move home now.”

“Good,” Alex says sharply, pointing at her.  “You’re not taking any more stupid jobs in DC, right?”

“Never again.”  Lucy flops down onto the couch, sprawling with a sigh and wiggling her shoulders around.  “This is the best couch.”  She rolls over onto her side when Alex settles down to sit on the floor in front of her.  Alex’s phone buzzes and she frowns at it.

“Work?”

“No,” Alex says.  “It’s--uh.  Kara signed me up for a stupid dating app.  It keeps beeping at me all the time.”

“Oh,” Lucy says.  A familiar grin pastes itself onto her face and she swallows against the instinctive way her chest clamps down.  She leans her head on her arm and raises an eyebrow.  “Anyone good so far?”

“Not really,” Alex says with a sigh, shoulders lifting and releasing momentarily.  Lucy digs her fingers into her palms at the appealing shift of muscle under Alex’s skin.  “It’s just-- I dunno.”

“They’re not Maggie,” Lucy says evenly.

“No,” Alex says, pulling her knees up to her chest and propping her chin on them.  “I mean, no, they aren’t, but that’s also not it.  It just isn’t clicking, I guess.”

“Right,” Lucy says.  Her teeth grind together.  She considers chickening out, bailing on the whole thing, giving up and resigning herself to a future of so much Alex and never in the one capacity she really wants.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”  Lucy blinks out of her contemplations.  “What about me what?”

“Don’t tell me you were a nun the whole time you were in DC,” Alex says, one side of her mouth curling up.

“Oh,” Lucy says.  “No, not really.”  She finds it in herself to wink boldly, ridiculously.

“Anyone you actually liked?”

“I mean,” Lucy starts slowly. “In a way.  Kinda.”  She bites down on her tongue.  “This one girl.  Kind of a brat, but in a good way, you know?  Doctor.   _Super_ hot.”

“As if you’d settle for anything less,” Alex says, reaching out to poke at Lucy’s ribs.  “You always did have the absolute highest of standards.”  She rocks back out of range of Lucy’s flailing retaliation and back into it with a grin.  “So what happened?  Someone actually got under your skin for once?”

“You could say that,’ Lucy says, faint and quiet.

“What’d she do to manage that?”

“Oh, you know,” Lucy says with a deep breath.  “Little things.  Showed up at my place one night when I was having a shitty week, opened a bottle of wine, gave me back a hoodie she stole three years ago.”

The ache in her stomach spreads to her lungs, breath stalling for something that has to be an eternity as Alex’s eyes widen slowly, her mouth going slack and hands flexing around her knees.

“Say something,” Lucy says softly.  “Please.”

Alex stares at her, blinking rapidly and shaking her head, hands falling down to the floor.  “Are you-- what are you saying?”

“It’s not obvious?” Lucy says, a nervous laugh rasping out of her throat.  She swallows against the way her spine wants to curl in on itself.  “That I spent the last two years pining after you?”

“But-- you never--” Alex pushes up to her feet, pacing the length of the room and back.  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Lucy sits up, slow and careful, pulling back into the couch as far as she can.  Her arms hold tight around her ribs, pushing against her heartbeat and willing it to stay steady.  

“Why didn’t I say anything?” she echoes. “You mean when you were with Maggie and or when you were a wreck after breaking up with Maggie?”

Alex pushes a hand through her hair and exhales, too loud and forceful for the quiet of the apartment.  “This--this is a lot. This is so much, Lucy.”

“You don’t have to--” Lucy pauses, breathes, speaks as evenly as she can.  “You don’t have to do anything.  I just-- I don’t know.  Wanted to know if this was all just me, or if--”

“If what?” Alex’s jaw goes tight, shoulders matching pace, and Lucy’s stomach turns in on itself because this is Alex at her worst, defensive and unsure, locking down and holding firm against uncertainty.  

“If you maybe wanted to try, I don't know, being together,” Lucy finishes, slumping down.  “I knew I shouldn’t have-- that this was a bad idea.”  She pushes up to her feet, taking the long way around the couch to avoid crowding Alex, and hefts her bag.  “We can just pretend this never happened or something.”

She’s halfway to the door, eyes burning and stubbornly not crying, keeping her gaze locked firmly on the doorknob and her exit plan, when a hand locks around her wrist.  Her whole body turns with the momentum and against her intention, duffel slinging off her shoulder and throwing her off balance and then everything spins and pivots and falls away because Alex’s other hand lands at her waist and she’s kissing Lucy, right there in the living room of her apartment, hesitant and careful and warm, so warm under Lucy’s hands.

“Are you sure?” Lucy says, pulling back for air, hands carefully soft on Alex’s shoulders and giving her every way out, even though Alex’s eyes are bright and she’s looking at Lucy like she’s the only thing in the entire world that makes sense.  

“No one’s-- not since Maggie.”  Alex hands are tight at her waist, keeping Lucy in her orbit and pulling her closer.  “It’s never felt right, not like-- not like this.”

“You’re sure?” Lucy says again, stomach fluttering in a new and different ache, even as her hands curl up around the back of Alex’s neck and into her hair, pulling her forward again.

“Completely,” Alex says, kissing her again, and again and again, lips moving with hers until Lucy’s skin is burning and the muscles in her legs tremble.  “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, actually.”

“What?” Lucy pulls back, hands returning to Alex’s shoulders to stop her when Alex chases her mouth.  “Really?”

“Months.”  Alex surges forward, spinning them around and backing Lucy towards the bed.  

“Really?” Lucy mumbles, legs going weak because she’d been so sure everything was ruined, but now Alex’s hands are fumbling at her shirt buttons and Lucy’s hands are tugging at Alex’s tank top until she can yank it over Alex’s head, skin warm and muscles strong under her hands.  Her fingernails dig in when Alex sucks on her jawline and a strangled echo of _“Are you sure"_ rips out of her anyways, even as her hands pull blindly at the button on Alex’s jeans.

“We can talk about it all later, but right now can we just--please--”  She bites down on the side of Lucy’s neck, drawing a strangled _“Fuck"_ out of her, and grins.  “Yeah, that.”

 

* * *

 

On the balcony of Lena’s office, Lena glares impatiently at the back of Kara’s head.  She’d had absolutely no resolve against Kara’s pout and had told her in less than an hour what was happening, and Kara had spent the last twenty minutes staring across the two miles of open air to the wide balcony and broad windows of Alex’s apartment.

“What’s happening?” She pokes at Kara’s shoulder finally, only to nearly be bowled over when Kara lets out a yell and leaps into the air, turning a joyful flip or two.  Lena nearly tumbles over and is only saved from hitting the floor by Kara catching her and kissing her swiftly before turning back to squint across the city again.

“Is that good?” Lena says, breaths coming heavy.

“They kissed!” Kara yelps, all but dancing in place.  “They look so happy, they’re-- oh no, oh no, oh no.”  She spins around and slaps a hand over her eyes.  “I’m never going to unsee that, oh my _God_ , I need to go bleach my eyes.”

 

* * *

 

Alex wakes up, barely, swimming towards consciousness to the sound of a zealous pounding on her apartment door.  She groans and reaches for the pillow to put over her head and is met with a whine from the other side of the bed and Lucy, whose pillow had just been yanked out from under her head.

Oh.

Alex blinks sleepily and rubs at her eyes, staring dumbly across the bed to where Lucy-- Lucy Lane, royal pain in the ass, military superstar, walking tornado, Alex’s best friend Lucy-- is dead asleep on her stomach, head now pillowed on her arms.  Early morning sunlight falls gently on her shoulders, softening the edges of freckles and combat scars.  

There’s another knock on the door, hard enough to make the walls rumble, hard enough to obviously only be Kara.  Kara, who was dating Lena, who had so clearly orchestrated Lucy showing up at her doorstep last night, who almost certainly knows how little sleep Alex probably got and how there’s a naked Lucy Lane in her bed.

Naked Lucy Lane.  

Alex rolls onto her side, pausing only to cast an irritated shush towards her front door that she knows Kara will hear, and props her head on her hand.  She reaches out and ghosts her fingers over a papery line of scar tissue that curves down from Lucy’s shoulder and arcs past her collarbone, a leftover memento from a surprise attack on an assignment in  Kabul. Lucy had told Alex the story, one drunk night three years ago, voice soft and back ramrod straight as she talked about the three people who had died in the attack.  The almost-invisible divot in the skin over her temple, just shy of the hairline, is from a concussion from a field exercise gone awry at West Point.  The neat parade of dotted scars on her left arm are from breaking her wrist when she was six, trying to emulate Lois and her back handsprings.  

There isn’t a scar on Lucy’s body that Alex doesn't know about, even before last night.  There was plenty that she learned-- exactly how good Lucy actually was with her tongue, the way her whole body arched under Alex’s mouth, the ticklish spot on her hip-- but there was more old than new.  

It’s easy to consider a future with Lucy.  She’s always already a constant in every iteration of the future that Alex is willing to consider.  

Kara’s knocking picks back up again, and Alex grumbles, pulls her hand away from Lucy’s skin.  

“You’re such a jerk,” she mumbles as she opens the door.  She’s nearly blown over by Kara whizzing into the apartment.  “I’m disowning you.”

Kara peers towards the bed and turns around quickly, hands slapped over her mouth and still not enough to contain her squeal.  “Alex!”

“Stop it,” Alex hisses.  “Stop that right now.  We’re not doing--”

“We totally are,” Kara bursts out.  She yanks Alex up into a bearhug, hard enough that her back cracks, and Alex groans.  Everyone in a ten block radius had to have heard that, and sure enough, there’s a sleepy whine from the bed and Lucy sits up.

“Is that Kara yelling like a dog whistle over there,” she says, pushing at her hair.  It’s a mess, full of tangles and half-curly, and there’s a collection of lines pressed into the side of her face from the pillow, and Alex stares at her, pulse stuttering for a moment because that’s _Lucy_ waking up in her bed.

Kara grins too wide at Alex.  “I heard that,” she whisper-shouts.  “You guys!  You finally got it together!  I’m so happy for you, I even brought donuts!”

“So much shouting,” Lucy mumbles with a groan and flops back onto the mattress.  “Make it stop.”

There’s another knock on the door, and Alex drops her head into her hands.

“That would be Lena, I presume?”

“You presume correctly,” Lena says, letting herself in.  “Someone felt the need to superspeed over.  Others of us did not.”

“But why is anybody here at all, that’s what I want to know,” Alex says loudly.  “And if people have to be here then why haven’t any of them given me coffee yet?”

“Ahem,” Lena says, brandishing the tray of coffees in her hands.  “So ungrateful.”

“Oh, I love you,” Alex mumbles.  She stumbles over towards the coffee, tripping over both her shirt and Lucy’s boots in the process.  She wraps both hands around the coffee Lena offers her and slumps down onto the couch, cradling it to her chest.  Lena huggs out a sigh and walks the tray over to Lucy as well.

“Come on, guys!” Kara says excitedly. “I’ve been dying to know everything since Lena told me, you have to tell us!”

“Well, first of all,” Lucy says through a yawn.  She points at Alex without letting go of her coffee.  “She can do this _thing_ with her tongue--”

“Oh my God,” Kara yells, slapping her hands over her ears.  “Not _that_ , never that, oh my God.”

“Hey, you asked,” Lucy says with a smooth shrug.  She catches Alex’s eye and smiles, soft and sleepy, and the warmth spreading behind Alex’s sternum has nothing to do with her coffee.

“You guys are so sappy,” Lena says from her spot leaning against the wall.  “It’s adorable.”

“Go away,” Alex mumbles into her coffee.  “Leave us alone and tell J’onn I’m taking the day off.”

“You are?” Everyone says in chorus, and Alex glares at all three of them.

“What?”

“You _never_ take time off,” Kara says indignantly. “You worked on Christmas!”

“Out!” Alex yells.  “Both of you, get out of my apartment.  Go away and I’ll call you later.  Stay and I’ll make Lena start sparring with me again.”

“Uncalled for,” Lena says with a sniff, even as she pushes away from the wall and reaches for Kara’s hand.  “I’m making reservations for dinner and you’d both better be there.”

“That’s not fair, we at least gave you two a full day after you started dating,” Alex says, a whine in her voice.

“Are you even technically dating yet?” Kara says.  “You haven’t even left the apartment.”

“We’ll be there,” Lucy says over the both of them.  “On the presumption that after that I get her uninterrupted until next Monday.”

“Deal,” Lena says, saluting with her coffee.

“Wait, Sunday is sister night,” Kara says.

“They’ll make it up to you,” Lena says, already frogmarching her out the door.  She glances back over her shoulder and mouths  _love you idiots_ to both of them before she closes the door.

“So,” Alex says long second after the door shuts.  “Hi.”

“Hey, you,” Lucy says.  She tilts her head towards the empty space on the bed next to her, and Alex settles down next to her.  There’s a moment of hesitation, and then Alex leans over and pulls Lucy closer to kiss her.

“Hey,” Alex says again.

“You’re still sure about this, right?” Lucy says quietly.  She settles a hand over Alex’s, halting the path it had been taking along her collarbone.  “That you want this.  Us.”

“I am,” Alex says.  “Very sure.”

Lucy kisses her, one hand hooked into the neckline of her t-shirt and pulling, awake and insistent, until Alex pushes her back down onto the mattress and takes a firm hold of her wrists.  

They end up only spilling a little bit of the coffee on the bed, and the donuts are completely forgotten.

 

* * *

 

_Are you two decent yet_

Alex rolls her eyes and stretches, listening as her back cracks before replying to the text Lena had sent to the both of them.

_One of us is.  The other is still primping_

A moment passes and Lucy yells out from the bathroom in indignation.  “It’s not my fault you bite like a vampire, Danvers.”

_Tell her to hurry up.  Dinner’s at eight and if we’re late kara will eat the whole restaurant_

_I’m responsible for nothing_ , _i’m just the club mascot.  Lucy’s the decision maker,_  Alex texts back.  “Just put on a scarf!”

“All of my scarves are in DC, you monster.”

The phones beep again with another text from Lena.

_Speaking of: I think we have to disband the club.  Doesn’t work anymore if partners aren’t allowed at meetings_

Alex raises an eyebrow at her phone, tapping out the count on her knee until there’s an incomprehensible wail from the bathroom.  She leans over so she can prop her chin up and see into the bathroom to where Lucy’s finishing up her makeup, staring unabashedly.  

The front door opens, and Alex tenses momentarily before realizing it’s Lena.  

“I’m about to take away your keys,” she says mildly.  

“If you’d walked in without knocking and we’d been banging, you would have deserved it,” Lucy yells from the bathroom.

Lena rolls her eyes and sits down next to Alex, sinking into her side and the arm Alex wraps around her.

“What’s up?”

“I’m just glad this is finally happening,” Lena says with a shrug.  “Watching you two dance around each other was going to be the death of me long before any of Lex’s contract killers would have been.”

“What, are we in a joking place about that now?” Alex says, skating right over to the comment about Lex.

“Seems like as good a time as any,” Lena says.  “Don’t you think?  He lost, and I’m happy.  We’re all happy.  Right?”

“Damn right,” Lucy says, and Alex smiles and tightens her hold on Lena.

“Right,” she echoes.  “We are.”

Lucy finally appears out of the bathroom.  “Enough of that, we have something important to discuss,” she says, snapping her fingers.  “We are _not_ disbanding the club.”

“Changing the rules, then?”

“I don’t know, but I definitely maybe had t-shirts made and they’ll be here with the rest of my stuff next week so we are _not_ disbanding,” Lucy says, rushed and definitive.  She blows a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and plants her fists on her hips.  “T-shirts, guys!  T-shirts for solidarity!”

“T-shirts for solidarity,” Alex says slowly.  “Okay.”  One side of her mouth tilts up in spite of herself, Lena at her side and Lucy in front of her, Kara waiting for them.  She reaches out and lets Lucy pull her up to her feet, turning to pull Lena as well.  It’s familiar and easy, just like it had always been, except for the way Lucy’s hand stays curled around hers, fingers finding their way to slot neatly between Alex’s.  

She follows them out of the apartment, trailing a half step behind with her hand still wrapped up in Lucy on their way outside to where Kara’s just arriving ,impatient and ready to eat as always.  Lucy’s steps fall back to match Alex’s and the trail behind Kara and Lena, mirroring postures and matching pace the whole way.


End file.
